The Tiger and the Lamb
by inkstainedfingers97
Summary: In this story, Lisbon is the one with the crazy bulletin board.
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Tiger and the Lamb

Rating: Teen, for violent themes and imagery (though nothing more graphic than what is on the show) and perhaps some adult language here and there.

Spoilers: Everything through 4x22, So Long and Thanks for All the Red Snapper.

Disclaimer: The good news is, I have finally written my first novel. The bad news is, it's a Mentalist fanfiction, so I will never make a dime off it.

Author's (extremely long) note: Here it is, the epic I've been promising for so long. I've been hurrying to try to get this out to you all before the start of the new season, and while it's not quite finished, I figured I'm far enough along that I can still get away with starting to post it.

I started this story for two reasons. One, I was getting annoyed at the fact that Red John had all these disciples that kept popping up willing to die for him, but our favorite CBI team never seemed to bother looking into them further once they were conveniently killed off. Secondly, as a challenge to myself, I wanted to see if I could take a bunch of the questions and loose ends about the Red John storyline that have never been satisfactorily answered and see if I could come up with a reasonable explanation that could tie them all together. I started this story towards the beginning of season 5, but once I started to really plot out where I wanted to go with it, I decided I didn't want to take on the new questions raised by the characters of Lorelei and Kirkland, so this story goes AU after 4x22. As it was, there were still plenty of questions left to answer. The result of this effort was me allowing myself to be consumed by this story for the better part of ten months. Writing this has been an amazing learning experience for me and I feel like I've grown a lot as a writer just from the process of making the attempt. It's been a lot of fun.

Special thanks to the wonderful Chiisana Minako for beta reading this monster and for always providing the most lovely, thoughtful, and analytical feedback.

I have copied here two poems by William Blake: The Tyger, and The Lamb. Like the Mentalist, these poems do not belong to me, but they are important elements in the story, so I have provided them here as a reference. No copyright infringement is intended.

THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience) By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright  
In the forests of the night,  
What immortal hand or eye  
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies  
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?  
On what wings dare he aspire?  
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.  
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?  
And when thy heart began to beat,  
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?  
In what furnace was thy brain?  
What the anvil? what dread grasp  
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,  
And watered heaven with their tears,  
Did he smile his work to see?  
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright  
In the forests of the night,  
What immortal hand or eye  
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

xxx

THE LAMB By William Blake

Little Lamb who made thee

Dost thou know who made thee

Gave thee life & bid thee feed.

By the stream & o'er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing wooly bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice!

Little Lamb who made thee

Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I'll tell thee,

Little Lamb I'll tell thee!

He is called by thy name,

For he calls himself a Lamb:

He is meek & he is mild,

He became a little child:

I a child & thou a lamb,

We are called by his name.

Little Lamb God bless thee.

Little Lamb God bless thee.


	2. Chapter 2

Cho had been shot.

Cho- solid, steady, unmutable Cho- grimaced and staggered back against the wall behind him, clutching at his side when the bullet hit him. He slid down the wall with his hand pressed to his ribs, his face ashen. A fine sheen of sweat broke out over his forehead, and he toppled over like a rag doll, boneless. Lisbon caught him as he fell, and Rigsby shot the perpetrator point blank between the eyes, his expression like stone.

Cho had been shot, and it was Jane's fault.

Jane had found a lead on the Red John case. Naturally, he had devised a clever scheme to follow up on it. Lisbon, however, proved surprisingly stubborn about agreeing to help.

"An abandoned warehouse?" she had said incredulously when he told her the plan. "No way, Jane. It's not a good idea. Do you have any idea how exposed that leaves us if something goes wrong?"

"Nonsense. Everything will be fine."

"Maybe if we had a SWAT team to back us up," she said doubtfully.

"No SWAT," Jane said quickly. "They're too noisy and we don't know which of them we can trust."

"It's SWAT. Do you know how extensive the background checks they do on those guys are?"

"About as extensive as the ones they do on FBI agents, I imagine," Jane said. "And O'Laughlin still got through, remember?"

She sighed. "I take your point."

"So you'll help?"

"No. I still don't like it, Jane. It's too risky."

"You always say that, and you always go along in the end," Jane said dismissively.

"I mean it, Jane. I'm not going to be part of this. And I don't want you asking the team to help you, either. Lord knows I've learned by this point that there's nothing I can do to prevent you from doing exactly as you please, so if you want to risk your own damn neck, fine, but I don't want you dragging them into this."

Jane hadn't listened. Lisbon was intractable, however, and he'd been unable to change her mind about the whole thing. Therefore, he waited until she was stuck in a meeting with Bertram and approached the team behind her back.

Grace was the first to agree. O'Laughlin's death had changed her. She was harder now, angrier. She was more inclined to give into her latent reckless streak now that she had a personal grudge against Red John.

Once he had Grace on board, Rigsby soon followed. He was motivated in equal parts by the desire to protect Van Pelt and to impress her, so he practically volunteered for the task once he found out she'd agreed to be part of the plan.

Cho was less easily persuaded. When Jane approached him, Cho gave him a measuring look. "What'd the boss say?"

"Eh," Jane said evasively. "What Lisbon doesn't know can't hurt her."

"You're lying," Cho said, unimpressed. "You already asked her and she said no, didn't she?"

Jane considered lying, but decided there really was no point. Cho could be tiresomely perceptive sometimes. "That is a reasonable synopsis of the conversation, yes."

"Hm."

"That's a 'no,' then?" Jane prompted.

Cho sighed. "No, I'll come. You're going to do it anyway, and you'll need someone to protect your civilian ass."

So Cho had come along and he had been shot for his trouble.

Lisbon had arrived just before it happened.

"How'd you know where we were?" Van Pelt asked her when she showed up.

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "I got back from my meeting with Bertram and the bullpen was empty. It didn't exactly take a genius to figure out Jane convinced you three idiots to go along with his hare-brained scheme. Which you're all in trouble for, by the way," she added, looking severely at each of her agents in turn. They wilted under her stern gaze and shifted uncomfortably. "We will have words about this later."

She turned to Jane. "For the record, when this absolutely terrible plan goes wrong, I'm blaming you," she informed him.

He grinned at her. "Duly noted."

She nodded curtly, and then proceeded to organize the team to maximum effect.

Five minutes later, Cho was on the ground.

Lisbon caught him before he hit the ground. She held him in her arms and pressed her hands over the wound to staunch the bleeding. She ordered Rigsby to call the paramedics. Her voice was calm and strong but her face was paler than Jane had ever seen it. She sent Grace to secure the area. Jane stood there uselessly, staring in horror at Cho propped up against Lisbon, her arms wrapped around him from behind and blood welling up between the fingers of her small white hands where they were pressed against his ribs.

She murmured soft, soothing words in his ear. "Always the drama queen, huh, Kimball?" she said with an almost convincing smile. "Don't think I don't know you're making a big fuss over that little scratch just for the attention."

He said something then, a name, but Jane didn't quite catch it. Lisbon's arms tightened around him. "You're not there, Cho. You're here in Sacramento, with us. With the team. The medics will be here soon, and they're going to help you. We're right here, Cho. You're not alone."

Jane watched this scene, horrified that he had no idea what place Lisbon was trying to convince Cho he was not in, and disconcerted that she knew this part of Cho that he did not.

She rode in the ambulance with him when the paramedics arrived, with the rest of the team following.

When Jane caught up with her, she was standing outside the window of the operating room, watching as they prepped Cho for surgery.

"How is he?" he asked.

"He has a collapsed lung and a severed pulmonary artery," Lisbon said, sounding weary.

"But he's going to be okay, right?" Jane said anxiously.

She turned to look at him. "I don't know, Jane. We won't know anything until he comes out of surgery."

Jane took in the sight of her, her blouse dark with bloodstains. He felt nauseous, and fought against the bile rising in his throat. If it had been her—

"Maybe you should get cleaned up," he said, his voice straining to be neutral.

She brushed him off. "It's fine, Jane."

He swallowed convulsively. "Please? I—I can't stand seeing you covered in blood."

She looked down at herself and then sighed. "Yeah, all right. I'll ask if there's a shower I can use. Maybe one of the nurses can lend me some scrubs."

When she entered the room where Jane, Rigsby, and Van Pelt were waiting, she looked tiny in the borrowed scrubs. The green color set her eyes off nicely, though, Jane reflected, acutely aware that this was hardly an appropriate moment to be thinking about the many lovely attributes of Teresa Lisbon. Since the alternative was dwelling on how his ill-advised plan had gotten Cho shot, however, he permitted his eyes to rest on Lisbon and his mind to wander.

He amused himself for a few moments thinking about what Lisbon might have been, if her life had gone differently. If her mother had never died. If her father had never hit her or her brothers. If she hadn't had the crushing responsibility of raising three younger brothers thrust upon her at the age of twelve. If her mother, who had been a nurse, had encouraged her to go into the medical profession instead of becoming a cop.

Lisbon would have been an excellent doctor, Jane mused. She had that natural air of authority about her, and he could easily imagine her barking orders to medical staff to ensure her patients received the best possible care. That caring, compassionate side of her that he primarily saw when she was offering her sympathies to bereaved relatives of homicide victims would be exercised more frequently as she offered support and encouragement to her patients and their loved ones. He was certain that Dr. Teresa Lisbon would have had a wonderful bedside manner.

He met her eyes and inclined his head towards the empty seat between him and Grace in an unspoken invitation.

She came over and sat down, touching him briefly on the shoulder in acknowledgment, and then turned to say something to Grace and Rigsby, who were sitting next to each other. Grace was leaning her head on Rigsby's shoulder and they were holding hands. Truthfully, Jane felt rather envious of them. But it wasn't until Van Pelt reached out and grasped Lisbon's hand in her other hand that Jane felt brave enough to reach for Lisbon's free hand with his own.

She didn't say anything—she was still talking to Grace—but she laced her fingers through his, her hand soft and warm. The four of them sat, linked by their joined hands, and waited.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimers, etc. in Chapter 1.

A/N: Thanks to everyone for the lovely reviews! I will try to respond individually as soon as I can-at the moment, I am still in frantic writing mode. Hope a new chapter is a reasonable compensation in the meantime.

xxx

Cho's surgery lasted fourteen hours. When it was over, he was moved into a private room in the ICU.

When the doctor came to tell them the surgery had gone as well as could be expected, Rigsby released a loud sigh of relief and Grace hugged him. Lisbon murmured a short prayer of thanks that Jane was certain was audible only to him. Jane closed his eyes, well aware that though they had cleared the first hurdle, the danger was far from over.

The doctor advised them that it would likely be several more hours at the least before Cho was likely to wake, and Lisbon sent Rigsby and Van Pelt home with orders to get some rest. They protested, but she overrode their feeble objections without much effort. They were all exhausted, and as Lisbon pointed out, at least some of them should get some rest. She, however, stayed.

Jane stayed with her.

She took the visitor chair next to the bed in Cho's new room and collapsed into it, staring at Cho's unconscious form with a lost expression on her face.

Jane tried to think of something reassuring to say, but he was unable to come up with any words that weren't hollow platitudes, so he left in search of more tangible comforts. He went to the hospital cafeteria and managed to acquire a couple of almost edible looking sandwiches, a cup of coffee for Lisbon, and a cup of the vilest tea he'd ever encountered for himself.

When he returned, Lisbon was praying. He sat down in the chair behind her and listened. Despite his firm lack of religious beliefs, he found he liked the sound of Lisbon praying. Her voice was soft and though he knew from experience that she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, her words had an almost musical lilt to them as she prayed for Cho's strength and safety.

He'd never realized how poetic prayer could be, before this.

When she finished, she sat back in the chair and accepted the coffee that Jane had brought her. "Thanks, Jane," she said tiredly.

He watched her. Her face was pale and drawn. "You should get some rest."

She shook her head. "I'm fine." She looked over at him. "You don't have to stay, though."

He smiled wryly. "I think it's a safe assumption that I wouldn't be able to sleep right now, anyway."

She nodded, and turned back to Cho.

Cho didn't wake up for two days. Lisbon stayed with him. Jane left on occasion, mainly to get food so he could make sure Lisbon ate something. Once, even he was defeated by exhaustion and left to get a few hours of sleep. When he returned, he found Lisbon fast asleep in her chair, her body pitched forward and her head resting on Cho's bed. She was gripping his hand with her own in her sleep.

Jane watched her, and he realized with a pang that he was rather jealous.

It was ridiculous, he knew. A clear indication of his own narcissism if ever there was one. It was just—he supposed he'd thought that if Lisbon was ever going to stage a marathon bedside vigil for someone… well, that it would be for him. He was the one always getting into scrapes, after all. The one who'd sworn to give his life to capture Red John. The one who always needed rescuing. Not calm, steady Cho.

It would have been better that way, he reflected. He should have been the one to take that bullet. Then Cho would have been spared and he would have reaped his just reward for not listening to Lisbon in the first place. Plus, Lisbon would have had to forgive him if he'd been shot. As it was, he had no illusions about what she must think of him now that he'd gotten one of her team members shot. Her worry over Cho had granted him a temporary reprieve, but he was certain there would be hell to pay once Lisbon could be reasonably assured that Cho would be all right.

Yes, all in all, he'd have preferred to suffer the physical pain of being shot to the possibility of Lisbon determining that he'd crossed one line too many and deciding to shut him out for good.

Not long after that, to Jane's immense relief, Cho woke up.

Jane saw him squeeze Lisbon's hand, and when she raised her head to look at him blearily, he was looking right back at her.

"Hey," Cho said.

"Hey," she said softly, her face splitting into a wide smile. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been shot." He took note of the crease on her cheek from the wrinkled sheet she'd been resting her head on. "You been here long?"

She wrinkled her nose and smiled in that way she did when she was trying to make light of something. "Nah."

"You're a terrible liar," Cho remarked. "How long have I been out?"

"Two days," Jane told him.

"Think that's enough beauty rest for you, Kimball?" Lisbon teased him gently. "Because let me tell you, I've had about enough of you sleeping on the job."

His lips twitched ever so slightly. "I'll try not to let it happen again."

"You'd better not. I'm going to dock your pay for worrying me like that."

"Thanks for staying."

"Please. I just wanted to make sure you didn't get any funny ideas like kicking the bucket on me," Lisbon said, giving him a slightly watery smile. "You know how much paperwork I would have had to fill out if you'd died?"

The exchange continued on in this vein, and once again, Jane felt rather jealous. It was petty of him, he knew. He should be focused on how grateful he was that Cho was alive. And he was. Truly. But he'd always been a selfish bastard, and he figured it was too late to expect himself to change now. So he was mildly disgusted with himself, but not particularly surprised, to find himself distracted from his relief by watching Lisbon smile at her second-in-command.

He knew there wasn't anything romantic between Cho and Lisbon—about ninety nine point nine percent sure, anyway—but they had a straightforward camaraderie that he envied. Like-minded, they understood each other instinctively-they were twin souls. That gave them an easy intimacy that Jane and Lisbon had never quite managed to achieve. The two of them had world-views so diametrically opposed to one another that much of the time it was as though they were from different planets. They made each other crazy, each finding the other puzzling and frustrating. And fascinating, he supposed. That was the other side of the coin. But though they had their own brand of intimacy, no one could ever say it was easy.

Lisbon called Van Pelt and Rigsby and was waiting for them outside Cho's room when they arrived.

Grace broke out into a brilliant smile when she saw her. "He's awake?" she said eagerly.

"Yes, the doctor's with him now," Lisbon told her.

"And he's going to be okay?" Rigsby asked anxiously.

Lisbon smiled at him. "He's going to be fine."

"Thank God," Rigsby sighed.

The doctor came out then and told them they could go in to see the patient.

Rigsby went straight in, but Grace hesitated on the threshold, taking Lisbon's hand. "Boss…"

Lisbon squeezed her hand back. "I know. Go on, now."

Grace shot her a grateful look and then she followed Rigsby inside.

Lisbon let her smile fade once the other two were safely inside. The mask fell and she leaned against the wall, looking weary.

"He's going to be okay," Jane reminded her. "They all will be."

"This time," she said darkly. "We were lucky."

He watched her. "You know, I really don't think you're going to be able to avoid saying it this time."

She looked at him blankly. "Saying what?"

"'I told you so.'"

Something in her face changed. She looked grim. "I'm not going to say it, Jane."

"You blame me for Cho getting hurt, as well you should. I admit it, I was wrong. You should let me have it. I deserve it. I'm sorry. I never wanted anyone to get hurt. I hope you can believe that."

"I don't blame you," she said woodenly. "I blame myself."

"How can you blame yourself?" he asked incredulously. "It was entirely my fault!"

She sighed. "You were right, Jane. I always go along with you in the end. The team knows that. They were just following my bad example."

"You told me not to go," he insisted. "You told me not to involve the team. You said it yourself, right before it happened. You said you were going to blame me when things went wrong, and you were right."

"Jane, do you have to be so damn literal? It was just… something I said. I didn't mean it."

"You can't possibly blame yourself for this," Jane said stubbornly. "The idea is ludicrous."

She shook her head. "If a toddler wanders into traffic and causes a six car pile up, do you blame the kid? Or do you blame the adult responsible for him for not watching him closely enough?"

"This is what you think of me?" he said bitterly. "That I'm no better than an unruly child and that you're nothing more to me than a glorified babysitter?"

"Sorry," she said, not sounding sorry at all. "It was the closest analogy I could think of."

"You can't blame yourself for this," Jane repeated.

She sighed. "Jane, I'm the team leader. I'm the one who is ultimately responsible for ensuring the safety of my team and managing how investigations are carried out. When someone on my team gets hurt, I'm the one that failed."

Jane stared at her, at a loss for words.

She straightened up and looked at her watch. "I'm going to go home and get cleaned up."

"Good," Jane said, sidetracked. "You should get some rest."

She shook her head. "I've got to go into the office for a couple of hours."

She left.

Still reeling from the revelation that Lisbon blamed herself for his reckless mistake, Jane could do nothing but watch her retreating figure make its way down the hall with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

This was far worse than he'd feared.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks again to everyone for all your reviews! I truly appreciate every single one. Sorry I haven't replied individually as yet-I will try to catch up on individual replies over the weekend. Still devoting every spare moment to the actual writing and editing of this thing. I plan to post a chapter a day up to the premiere, and I will try to keep up that rate as long as my editing can keep pace. Giving you two chapters tonight just for the heck of it.

xxx

Cho stayed in the hospital for three weeks.

Rigsby, Van Pelt, and Jane rotated their visits on and off to keep him company and to help keep the office covered. Well, Jane wasn't much help on that point, as he was more likely to stretch out on the couch and catch a catnap than do anything useful like answer the phones, but he did go into the CBI on occasion, for appearances' sake.

Lisbon was at the hospital almost constantly. She could be found there at almost any hour of the day, reading to Cho from a stack of Dickens novels or teasing him about one of the nurses having a crush on him. Jane even caught her fluffing his pillow, for God's sake. Watching her fuss over Cho, he realized he was gaining a keen insight into what it must have been like in the Lisbon household when one of the Lisbon boys was sick or injured. Lisbon would have always been at their sides, spoiling them terribly and providing whatever comfort occurred to her to offer. Jane's heart ached a little, thinking that he wouldn't mind being on the receiving end of her tender ministrations for a change.

She left only when one of the other members of the team was there to watch over Cho, and when she did, it was usually only to go home and grab a shower before heading into the office for a few hours before returning to the hospital, usually bearing food of some kind for her patient. Jane was sure she wasn't sleeping, a fact confirmed when she showed up one morning after she'd ostensibly left to catch a few hours of sleep with a batch of the most god-awful cookies he'd ever encountered.

He ate one out of curiosity. It didn't taste too bad, actually, but it was hard as a rock and he had to quit after the first couple of bites for fear of ending up with a mouthful of cracked teeth. Cho, on the other hand, actually seemed to like them. He crunched away happily on the things like he actually took pleasure in consuming organic matter that appeared to have been fossilized and then excavated from some kind of archaeological dig. Jane was a little surprised that Cho didn't seem to mind Lisbon's hovering. Not that he, Jane, would have, but Cho was made of sterner stuff than he was. It was possible that Cho just realized that Lisbon needed to hover for her own reassurance and that he let her do it more for her sake than for his, but Jane had the sneaking suspicion that Cho was actually enjoying being fussed over. Which as he'd said, he could hardly blame him for.

She was unfailingly cheerful on these visits, probably because she believed Cho needed an example of a positive outlook to lift his spirits while he recovered. On the rare occasions Jane's time in the office overlapped with hers these days, she was as brusque and focused as ever, always the consummate professional.

Jane wasn't fooled. She put up a brave front, but he knew that she was withdrawing into herself. He was an expert at displaying a sunny exterior to the world when inwardly the pieces were crumbling; he recognized the signs. Plus, the quality of her baking was improving, which despite what Rigsby thought, was unfortunate, because it meant that she still wasn't sleeping. She was getting up in the middle of the night to pore over cookbooks and turn out batch after batch of cookies, muffins, and scones which she brought to Cho. Rigsby, profiting from the surplus of baked goods delivered to Cho and clueless about his boss's nocturnal baking habits, was delighted by this turn of events. Jane, however, knew the truth, and was disturbed by it.

He saw her shoulders slump, ever so slightly, when she thought no one was looking. Saw her rub her eyes and fiddle with her cross. Saw her look off into the distance and appear utterly lost. Then come back to herself with darkness glittering in her eyes.

Frankly, it was really starting to worry him.

He hated seeing her upset. If he'd said this to her, she would have told him that was a surprise to her, given that he was the one who usually seemed to go out of his way to do things that he knew would upset her. It was true, though. He liked to rile her up, yes—it was so fun to watch her when she was piqued- but he hated the idea of something he'd done actually upsetting her. Of course, that ship had pretty much already sailed, what with him getting a member of her team shot. Still, he hated seeing her like this. Pretending to be fine, shoring up the rest of the team. Meanwhile, the ground was turning to quicksand beneath her and no one else had noticed.

It was time he did something about it.

He made it his business to catch her in her office one day, knowing she wouldn't want to have this conversation in the hospital.

He departed from his usual tradition of barging in and knocked gently on the doorjamb to announce his presence. "Hey."

She looked up. "Hey."

"Any chance I can persuade you to leave your paperwork behind for a while and get lunch with me?"

"Not right now, Jane. I'm in the middle of something."

"Come on, you've got to eat."

"I'll grab something later."

"You need to take a break."

"I will. I'm going to go over to the hospital later this afternoon. I'll get something then."

"No, I mean a real break. One for you, not one that involves taking care of someone else or serving the people of California."

"I don't have time for a break right now."

"You should make time. I'm worried about you."

"About me?" she said blankly. "Why?"

"You're taking this thing about Cho too hard."

Her face closed off. "A member of my team was shot," she said coldly. "You'll forgive me if I'm not able to shake it off quickly enough to suit you."

"That's not what I meant," he said hastily. "I meant, you're taking it too personally."

"One of the people I trust and value most in the world was almost killed. Of course I'm taking it personally," she snapped.

Jane tried not to be distracted by the stab of jealousy that he felt when she mentioned trust. Her trust was something he'd been pursuing for years, but she'd never completely admitted to trusting him. Cho, however, was securely on that list of precious few. He forced his mind back to the task at hand. He couldn't allow himself to be sidetracked right now. "Yes, of course. You're right. I'm just concerned that you're not taking care of yourself."

"I'm taking care of myself just fine," she said coolly.

"You're not sleeping," he pointed out. "And your eating habits have gotten even more irregular than usual."

"I'm fine," she repeated. "It's nothing you need to be concerned about."

"Of course I'm concerned," he said, exasperated. "You're doing too much. You're at the hospital at all hours, yet you're still managing to keep up at work. Which you are only managing to do because you seem to have eliminated those little details of eating and sleeping from your life."

She brushed him off. "I have a lot on my mind."

"Yes, I know." He hesitated. She looked very far away, as though those things that were weighing on her had only to be mentioned in passing to reclaim their hold on her. "Anything you want to talk about?"

She tapped her pen on her desk, lost in thought. "How do you think he knew?" she said suddenly.

"Who?" Jane said, taken aback.

"Red John, of course," she said impatiently. "How do you think he figured out your plan this time?"

For once, Jane couldn't say he'd given it much thought. He'd been thoroughly distracted by everything that came after. "I don't know," he admitted.

"He knew the exact location," she mused.

"Yes." That was odd. Jane hadn't told anyone but the team where they were going, and he knew they wouldn't have said anything to anybody outside the unit.

"And he had the timing just right, too."

Jane frowned. "True."

"I can't get it out of my head," she confessed. "How he got the drop on us yet again. God, he's always one step ahead of us. All these years, and we never seem to get any closer to catching him."

"That's not true," Jane said. "We know more about him than we did when we started."

She shook her head. "Precious little."

"Yes," Jane agreed. He felt weary all of a sudden, thinking about it. "Sometimes it feels like we're chasing a ghost."

She frowned. "We're not, though. He's only human. He has weaknesses, just like everybody else. He's just more clever at hiding them than most."

He sighed. "I've noticed."

"I'm sick of this," she said. "I'm sick of him thinking that he's always going to win. That he can just toy with us for his own amusement."

"What are you saying?" Jane said, feeling uneasy. He was surprised that Lisbon was following this line of thought. He'd thought all her energy was going into taking care of Cho and keeping up with her current case load. Apparently, she'd found time to develop her own obsession with bringing down Red John. Probably while baking muffins at three in the morning.

"I'm going to get him," she said fiercely. "He's going to pay for what he's done. And he is never going to hurt anyone we care about ever again."

Jane was alarmed at the tone of her voice. She sounded like… well, him. Like she wouldn't hesitate to shoot Red John in cold blood if the opportunity presented itself. He should have been pleased. If Lisbon had come around on the whole vengeance thing, theoretically, it would make his life easier. He wouldn't have to worry about working around her when it came time to exact his revenge. He might even be able to persuade her to help him. But truthfully, it had never occurred to him that she would ever change her mind about this. Lisbon believed in the law. It was who she was. And when it came down to it, he didn't want her to change her mind. He didn't want her to change who she was, for this. For anything. He relied on her. He still wanted his revenge, of course, but perversely, he didn't want her to want him to get it. He needed her to be Lisbon, strong and uncompromising and better than him. To be his north star.

She came back to herself, and looked at him. "Was there anything else you needed, Jane? Because I really need to get back to this."

"No," he said, dread churning in his stomach. "No, I don't need anything. I'll leave you alone."

"Thanks," she said, dismissing him without another thought. "I'll see you later."

He managed a weak smile. "Yeah. Later." And not knowing what else to do, he left.

That hadn't gone how he'd planned it to at all.


	5. Chapter 5

When he next saw Lisbon, she was back at the hospital. Furthermore, she was smiling.

"Cho's being released from the hospital tomorrow," she informed him, beaming.

"That's great," he said, smiling back. "Are you going to adapt the rotation of visitors to a schedule more suitable for visiting his apartment?"

She shook her head. "His mom is coming to stay with him."

Good. Maybe that meant Lisbon would finally get some rest. "Bet he's excited about that," Jane remarked.

"Yeah. He's convinced she's going to drive him crazy before the week is out. It shouldn't be for too long, though. The doctors say he can come back to work in a couple of weeks."

"Ah, I see the real source of your excitement," Jane teased. "You're a harsh taskmaster, Lisbon. The poor man was shot, and all you care about is getting him back to work as soon as possible."

She swatted him on the arm. "Oh, hush. It will only be light desk duty to start. I won't set him to carrying heavy stones uphill until he's been back on the job at least a couple of days."

"Hm. Perhaps I'd better warn him about the drudgery to come. Encourage him to continue milking this whole getting shot thing for as long as he can."

She shook her head at him, but she was still smiling.

Jane looked at her, a soft smile on his own face as he watched her. Things couldn't be that bad if Lisbon was smiling like that. He felt hopeful for the first time in what felt like weeks. Maybe things would be all right now.

Xxx

After that, Jane had thought things were going well. Cho was improving every day, much to everyone's relief (especially Jane's—he'd grown accustomed to guilt, over the years, but he had to admit the prospect of bearing up under the added burden of guilt would have been rather daunting if Cho had actually died. As it was, it was only a millstone of middling weight around his neck. Nothing he couldn't handle).

Cho's mother, as predicted, did indeed drive Cho crazy, riding roughshod over him regarding everything from physical therapy to his eating and sleeping habits. Cho bore up well, seeming to recognize there was nothing to do but endure this treatment with patient stoicism until it passed. Rigsby found all this highly amusing.

Lisbon continued to fuss over her favorite patient, but she was spending more time at the office now and the steady stream of baked goods had slowed to a mere trickle. Jane interpreted this as a good sign. She still looked like she wasn't getting enough sleep, but he felt hopeful that her sleeping habits would improve once Cho was back at full speed again.

The Friday after Cho returned to work, Jane was lying on his couch when Rigsby and Van Pelt returned from interviewing a suspect in their latest case. Lisbon had gone with them, wanting to look at the scene again, but she didn't appear to have come back with them. Jane had been waiting expectantly for the trio to return, pondering his chances of being able to convince Lisbon to grab a bite to eat with him after she came back from the interview and had finished all her paperwork for the evening. He thought his odds were pretty good. Lisbon's defenses were always lower after she'd been shut in her office doing paperwork for a couple hours. Plus, tomorrow was Saturday, so she wouldn't have to worry about having a late night. He might even be able to tempt her to go listen to some jazz with him at a nightclub a few doors down from the restaurant he'd picked out.

"How'd it go?" Cho asked. He was on desk duty—Lisbon hadn't set him on the stone carrying regime just yet.

"Good," Rigsby said. "Case is closed. The mother confessed."

"Where's Lisbon?" Jane asked, craning his neck to look around Rigsby's hulking frame to see if she was coming in behind them.

"She said she was calling it a day. Left straight from the crime scene," Van Pelt informed him.

Jane blinked. "She went home?"

"I guess."

"It's only four o clock!" Jane said incredulously. Lisbon never left early.

Van Pelt shrugged, apparently not thinking it at all odd that their boss had elected to skip out of work early. "It's Friday and Monday's a holiday. I guess she wanted to get a head start on the long weekend."

Jane huffed, feeling put out. He settled himself back down on his couch, considering this development. Perhaps Lisbon had decided to take his advice and get some rest? It was unlike her to blow off closed case paperwork, even on a Friday night, despite the fact that he always tried to convince her it could wait until Monday morning. She hated leaving things undone. Said she couldn't enjoy the weekend with paperwork was hanging over her head. Besides, she always insisted it was better to be prepared, because they never knew if they were going to catch a case first thing next week, or even over the weekend, and then where would she be? He shifted on the couch, suddenly unable to get comfortable. Something wasn't right.

He lasted five minutes, and then he got up. "Well, if the boss is skipping out early, I guess that means we can go, too," he announced.

Cho didn't look up from his book. "Leave her alone. Let her have the weekend."

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Cho," Jane said primly. "I'm merely following the example of our fearless leader and getting a head start on the fun and frivolity to be had this fine weekend."

"Okay, but don't come crying to me when Lisbon punches you in the nose for showing up at her place uninvited and ruining her Friday night."

"That's not going to happen," Jane said confidently. He'd honed his reflexes well over the years—these days, he was much better at dancing out of the way at the critical moment when he managed to anger Lisbon to the point where she was ready to resort to physical violence.

He went to Lisbon's apartment, hoping to catch her curled up on the couch reading a book or watching TV (preferably in one of those jerseys she favored. Not that he noticed such things).

She wasn't home.

That was fine, he told himself. She was probably just running errands. She'd been so busy lately it made sense that she might need to catch up on household chores and the like.

He pulled out his cell phone and hit number one on the speed dial. "Hello, Lisbon, it's me," he said cheerfully. "Wondering if you want to grab a bite to eat later. I waited for you at the office, but Van Pelt said you'd gone home for the day. I have to admit, this woman of mystery act you've got going on here has me intrigued. Leaving early? What's next, a secret lover and a plot to assassinate a foreign head of state? Talk to you soon."

He waited on her front step for about a half an hour, but he got fidgety after awhile, so he picked the lock to her apartment and let himself inside.

He unearthed Lisbon's teakettle and made himself a pot of tea. He drank his first cup standing, wandering around the ground floor of her apartment, perusing her bookshelves and committing her CD collection to memory. He selected a volume from her shelves and poured himself a second cup of tea, and then he settled down on her couch to wait.

Two and a half hours later, he was starting to worry. He tried telling himself that he was getting worked up over nothing. She could be out shopping, having dinner with friends, or decided to go to the movies. She could have a date. But Lisbon hated shopping, the people she socialized the most with were the team, and she'd been so busy lately he couldn't imagine when she would have found time to schedule a date without him noticing it. Especially not one that warranted leaving work early. He distracted himself with this line of thought for longer than he cared to admit to himself. Finally he came to the conclusion that even if she had somehow met someone, planned a date, and left work early for it all without him realizing it, she would have come home to get ready first, and she hadn't done so. Besides, he'd called Lisbon over three hours ago, and she always returned phone calls promptly. Even when she was pissed at him, she didn't avoid his calls. She was more likely to call him back and yell at him over the phone if she discovered some misdeed of his. Like, say, breaking into her apartment without her permission, for example.

He called her again at ten. "Hi, Lisbon, it's me again. Where are you? I'm starting to get worried. Please call me back."

He lay back down on the couch, but couldn't get comfortable. Lisbon had terrible taste in couches. First that one in her office with more springs than stuffing that he'd had to replace, and now this one with this armrest that was too high and too hard to comfortably rest one's head upon. The woman needed a keeper, Jane thought grumpily. She needed someone to look after her, to make sure she didn't work too hard, ate regular meals, and acquired some decent furniture.

As the clock ticked its way towards eleven, he thought again about where Lisbon might be. He was going to feel like a fool if she stumbled in here with a date in tow. A deeply relieved, jealous fool.

At one am, he gave up on the couch. He made himself another cup of tea, and then meandered upstairs to Lisbon's bedroom.

He felt more calm the moment he entered her room. The space smelled like her. He hesitated only a moment, and then he crawled into her bed, choosing the side he could tell she usually slept on. This was more like it, he thought, burying his nose in her soft, sweet-smelling pillow. He was worried over nothing. She would come home any minute now, and she would yell at him for crossing boundaries and what the hell was he thinking, breaking into her apartment. There would probably be hitting. But that would be okay, because that would mean she was there, and each blow would be a reminder that she was alive and well. Maybe someday, he thought idly as he drifted into that place between consciousness and sleep, there would be a time where he would wait up for her and she wouldn't hit him. Maybe instead she would crawl into bed next to him and curl into his side. He didn't allow himself to think about such things with his conscious mind, but there's only so much control a man can exert over his dreams, after all. He fell asleep with a half smile on his lips, imagining her there with him.

When he woke up, sunlight was streaming into the bedroom and Lisbon was nowhere to be seen. All his tension from the night before returned tenfold.

He called Grace.

"What's the best way of filing a missing persons report?" he asked without preamble when she answered the phone with a sleepy hello.

"What?" Van Pelt said, startled out of her sleepiness. "What's wrong? Who's missing?"

"Lisbon is missing."

"What do you mean, Lisbon is missing?" Van Pelt asked, sounding taken aback.

"I mean, Lisbon didn't come home last night, and she's not answering her phone."

"How do you know she didn't come home?"

"Because I was here last night, obviously, and she never came home."

There was a long pause. "You're living at the boss's apartment?" Van Pelt asked finally, sounding both shocked and fascinated at the same time.

"Of course not," Jane said impatiently. "If we were living together, presumably she would have told me where the hell she was going instead of leaving me here to worry about her all night."

"I didn't even know you and Lisbon were together," Van Pelt marveled, obviously sidetracked by what she considered a fairly significant revelation.

"Grace, focus. Lisbon and I are not sleeping together. I came over and broke into her apartment to wait for her last night, but she never showed up."

"Oh," Van Pelt said, sounding almost disappointed, but also like the idea of Jane breaking into Lisbon's apartment without her consent made a lot more sense to her than the thought of Jane and Lisbon carrying on some kind of clandestine affair. "Right. But Jane, just because she didn't come home last night doesn't mean anything's wrong. She might have had a date or something."

"I thought of that," Jane said. "But she didn't return my calls."

"No offense, Jane, but if she was having a good enough time that she went home with the guy, calling you back was probably pretty low on her priority list."

"Grace, when, in all the years you've known her, have you ever called Lisbon without receiving a call back within two hours?" he asked skeptically.

"Never," she admitted reluctantly. "But it's not outside the realm of possibility, you know."

"I will grant you that, but can we focus on what's probable, rather than extreme possibilities?"

"Fine," Grace agreed. "What do you think happened to her?"

He swallowed. "I don't know. I started to worry that maybe Red John had taken her."

"I don't know, Jane," Grace said doubtfully. "Why would he take her?"

"He knows she's important to me."

"Okay, but why not just kill her, if he wanted to hurt you?"

"If he takes her but doesn't kill her right away, that prolongs the game for him. He can savor my suffering over a longer period of time."

"I don't think so," Grace said. "If he took her, I think you'd know it. I think he would have sent you some kind of sign or something to make sure you were good and worked up about it."

This was actually rather reassuring. "You're right," he said, feeling some of the pressure in his chest loosen ever so slightly. "You're right, he would have sent me a message."

"Honestly, Jane, I think you're overreacting to this whole thing," she told him. "You don't have any real reason to think something's wrong, do you? Maybe she just went to the beach or something."

"The beach?" Jane repeated, as though he'd never heard of such a thing.

"Yes, the beach. It's a long weekend, after all, and she's been working like crazy. Maybe she just wanted to get out of town, decompress."

"I don't know," Jane said doubtfully. "Maybe we should put out one of those alert thingies on her car, just in case."

"Alert thingies?" Van Pelt repeated. "You mean a bolo? I don't think that's a good idea. She'll kill me if she gets pulled over just because you are being a big worrywart."

"Fine," Jane huffed. "If you're not going to help me, I'll just call the police myself."

She sighed. "Jane, it's too soon. Think about it rationally. Lisbon is a grown woman who has every right to take off without consulting anyone, and there's no evidence that she was taken anywhere against her will. The police aren't going to take this seriously until at least seventy-two hours have passed."

"Do you have any idea what a psychotic killer can do to a person within seventy-two hours?" Jane demanded.

"Jane, calm down. You're freaking out over nothing," Van Pelt said flatly. "I'm sure Lisbon is fine."

"That makes one of us," Jane muttered, and he hung up on her.

He spent most of the morning calling all the hospitals in the area to ask if they had any patients answering to Lisbon's description. He also called Cho and Rigsby, but they reacted in much the same way Van Pelt had. They all seemed convinced that Lisbon had decided to take a much-deserved break. Didn't they know her at all? When was the last time Lisbon voluntarily took a day off to do something purely frivolous? Even if it was the weekend.

By early afternoon, he'd exhausted his list of hospitals and urgent care clinics and was rattling around the apartment, at a loss as to what to do. He called her three more times on her cell, and twice on her office phone, just in case she'd ended up back at work. Finally he hit upon the idea of calling one of her brothers to see if she might have mentioned in passing if she was meeting with someone the previous evening.

He found Tommy's number in the address book in her desk.

"Tommy, it's Patrick Jane," he said by way of greeting.

"Patrick, hi," Tommy said, sounding surprised. "Uh, what can I do for you?"

"Have you heard from Lisbon lately?"

"Sure," Tommy said, bemused. "She called me yesterday."

"She did? What time was this?" Jane demanded.

"I dunno, around four-thirty, I guess."

"What did she say?"

"Not much. Just that she was going out of town and not to worry if I didn't hear from her for a few days." A note of tension crept into his voice. "Why? Is something wrong?"

Jane breathed a sigh of relief. Grace had been right. Lisbon hadn't been kidnapped, she'd just gone out of town. "No, nothing's wrong," he told Tommy, not wanting to worry him unnecessarily. Now that he knew Lisbon had left under her own power, there was no need to put her brother though the worry and anxiety he'd been experiencing for the past twenty-four hours. "I was just trying to reach her and couldn't get hold of her so I thought I'd check and see if you'd heard from her. Did she mention where she was going?"

"No," Tommy said. "Just that she was going out of town."

Jane grilled him for a few more minutes, but it was clear Tommy knew nothing else useful about Lisbon's whereabouts. Finally, he told Tommy to say hi to Annie for him, and said good-bye. He hung up the phone feeling deeply relieved.

That feeling lasted all of about ten minutes before he started second guessing everything he'd learned. Tommy had said Lisbon had gone out of town, but that didn't explain why she wouldn't have returned his calls. Especially as he'd left her about a half a dozen messages by this point.

By the time two more hours had passed, he'd convinced himself that Lisbon had been forced at gunpoint to call Tommy and tell him that she was leaving town so no one would suspect anything was wrong.

What followed were two of the most wretched days Jane had ever experienced. He stayed at Lisbon's apartment in the bleak hope that she would turn up eventually, not having the first clue where to look for her and not knowing what else to do.

When she didn't come home Monday night, either, Jane was convinced the worst had happened.

It was a terrible night. He hardly slept, and when he did, he was plagued by dreams of Lisbon being taken away from him. The time in between dreams was even worse—he was forced to face, in those dark hours, exactly what his life would be if Lisbon didn't return alive and well. His first thought, of course, was Red John. The killer must know by now what Lisbon meant to him. It would be like him to take her from him, to hurt him in this way. But the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced Grace was right. If Red John had taken her, he would have wanted to claim his victory. He would have sent Jane a message, or left his gruesome signature somewhere for Jane to find. Still, there were a lot of killers out there, and Lisbon had been responsible for putting a lot of them behind bars. Any one of them could have decided to go after her for revenge.

Needless to say, this was not a reassuring thought.

He was at the CBI camped out on his couch early the next day. He clung to one last shred of hope that Lisbon would turn up for business as usual. The same shred of hope that signified his tenuous hold on what was left of his sanity, incidentally. If she didn't come in, he was going to force Van Pelt to hack into surveillance footage for every camera in the state until they found what had happened to her.

Lisbon arrived at the office at 7:53 am, her messenger bag over her shoulder and a large mailing tube under one arm. The bullpen was deserted, except for them; the rest of the team hadn't arrived yet. "Morning, Jane," she said cheerfully in passing. "Did you have a good weekend?" She didn't wait for him to respond as she continued into her office, calling back over her shoulder. "I hope you haven't spent the last three days on that couch. You need to get out more."

Jane stood up, dazed. He moved towards her like a sleepwalker, or perhaps like a desert wanderer succumbing to the pull of an especially tempting mirage.

She dumped her stuff on her desk and turned when she heard him behind her. She did a double take. "Jeez, what the hell happened to you?" she asked, sounding taken aback. "You look terrible."

He didn't answer her, not trusting himself to speak. He crossed the room in two strides and gathered her to him in a rib-cracking hug before she knew what was happening.

She circled her arms around him and tentatively hugged him back. "Jane?" she said uncertainly. "What's going on?"

He didn't let go of her. "Where the hell have you been?" he asked, his throat tight.

"Huh? Oh. Lake Tahoe."

"Lake Tahoe?" he said, the same way he would have said "Hades?"

"Yeah. A friend of mine has a cabin up in the woods around there and she said I could use it for the weekend."

He closed his eyes. "Why didn't you answer your damn phone?"

She patted him awkwardly on the back. "It doesn't get service up there, and then the battery died because I forgot to set it not to search for a signal." She pulled back and looked into his face. "Jane, what's happened? What's wrong?"

He shook his head, unable to answer, but continued to stare at her with haunted eyes. He held onto her, gripping her shoulders to remind himself that she was there, that she was real.

She looked at him as though he'd grown a second head, but didn't pull away.

They were interrupted by a chorus of 'good mornings' as the rest of the team filed into the bullpen and started firing up their computers.

Jane released Lisbon at last. He stalked back to the bullpen and collapsed on his couch, feeling exhausted. Lisbon trailed after him, hovering awkwardly between the desks.

"See Jane, I told you she was fine," Van Pelt said cheerfully. She turned to Lisbon and smiled brightly. "Did you have a good weekend?"

"Fine," Lisbon said distractedly. She jerked her head towards Jane. "What's with him?"

"He had a bit of a nutty when you didn't come home on Friday night," Van Pelt explained.

"He was ready to call out the National Guard to look for you by Saturday morning," Cho put in.

"When I didn't come home?" Lisbon repeated blankly. She looked at Jane questioningly. "How did you know I hadn't come home?"

"Oh, he broke into your apartment to wait for you," Van Pelt said helpfully.

Lisbon's eyebrows shot up to her hairline and Jane looked down at his hands. Van Pelt was officially off his Christmas list.

"Okaaay," Lisbon said slowly, her eyes on Jane. "How was everyone else's weekend?"

Jane didn't stay to be regaled with stories of the rest of the team's holiday. He stood abruptly and exited the bullpen. He headed for the stairs to the attic, feeling Lisbon's eyes on his back the whole way there.

He was shaking, he noted clinically. He really ought to do something about that. Call one of his biofeedback tricks into use. He took a few calming breaths, but it didn't do much good. He started pacing the attic to work off his nervous energy instead.

Lisbon left him alone to sulk for about a half an hour before he heard her light step outside the door. She knocked hesitantly on the open door. "Jane? Can I come in?"

He gestured for her to enter.

She came in, but stayed near the door, as though she was afraid she might spook him if she came too near. "I listened to your messages," she said quietly. "I'm sorry I worried you."

"It wasn't your fault," he said shortly. He stopped pacing and leaned against the desk, scrubbing a hand over his face. "It's my problem, not yours. I'm the paranoid one who was freaking out over nothing, to use Van Pelt's words."

"I would have called you, if I'd known."

He looked down. "I know."

She crossed the room to lean against the desk next to him. She bumped his shoulder gently with hers. "You want to tell me about it?"

He shrugged. "Not much to tell. I couldn't reach you and I panicked."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "And broke into my apartment?"

"It seemed like the logical thing to do at the time."

She shook her head. "Only you would think breaking and entering was the most logical course of action in this situation."

"You weren't answering your phone and no one knew where you were. I thought if I went to your apartment I could just wait you out."

"You stayed at my apartment all weekend?" she said, exasperated.

He winced. "Yeah. I, uh, slept in your bed, too."

To his surprise, she actually laughed at this. "I guess that's appropriate, in a way," she said dryly.

"What do you mean?" he said, surprised.

She eyed him critically. "Well, you've obviously got the hair for it. You already help yourself to the food and beverages in other people's homes. I suppose sleeping in other people's beds is just the next step in the progression. It makes sense that if you were going to be a fairy tale character, you would be Goldilocks."

He smiled despite himself. "I did think to myself that your bed was just right."

She ignored any possible double meanings in this statement. "I heard you called my brother, too."

Boy, everyone was ratting him out today. "He told you?"

She nodded. "Tommy called a few minutes before I came up here, wanting to check in on me. He thinks we're sleeping together now, by the way, so thanks for that."

"Does he?" Jane said, intrigued.

"Yeah, I think he thought we had a lover's spat or something. He figured you pissed me off and I was ducking your calls, but that you were just pathetic enough to go into stalker mode and try to find me even if I was avoiding you."

Jane considered this. "Doesn't sound too far off."

"Hey. I wasn't avoiding you. I just went out of town."

He looked away. "Right."

She touched his sleeve. "Come back downstairs. I have something to show the team that I think you'll be interested in."

"In a minute," he told her. He felt raw, exposed. He wanted another moment to compose himself.

"Okay," she said, straightening and heading for the door. "Don't be long, though, or I'll start without you."

"I'll be right down," he promised.

She paused in the doorway. "Jane?"

"Yes?" He looked at her, a bright spot in the gloom.

"Thanks for worrying about me," she said softly.

He gave her a twisted, sad smile. "Always."


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Giving you two more chapters tonight, since they're both short and deal with a lot of the exposition and set up for the rest of the story. Enjoy!

P.S. I feel the need to defend Lisbon's bulletin board. I came up with Lisbon's bulletin board before whichever episode first showed Jane's, I swear! I was a bit flummoxed when his showed up, actually. But it should be clear pretty quickly that this story does not parallel the events of season 5 in any way, so I think I'm safe on that score.

xxx

When Jane returned to the bullpen, Lisbon had gathered the team in a little half-circle around one of those bulletin boards held up by two skinny metal legs on wheels. The board was turned towards the wall and the mailing tube Lisbon had been carrying earlier was lying empty on the table beside it. Jane took his place in the little group, coming to stand between Cho and Grace.

"Okay, listen up," Lisbon said, her soft concerned voice replaced with the authoritative tone she used when she wished to command attention. "I've been thinking a lot about the Red John case over the past few weeks, and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that we need to stop being so reactive in how we deal with him."

"What do you mean?" Rigsby asked, puzzled.

"Every time we catch a Red John case, we follow up leads until they fizzle out, and then it's like we're just waiting for him to kill again on the off chance that he'll leave some evidence this time around. We need to stop being so passive. We should be forcing him to react to us, not the other way around."

"Okay," Van Pelt said slowly. "But how do we do that when every lead we get always ends up being a dead end?"

"We do it by changing our approach," Lisbon said. "We've been treating Red John cases the way we treat all our other cases. We get word of a new victim, and search through the evidence to piece together the different elements of the victim's life. But Red John operates differently than other killers. He isn't motivated by jealousy, or greed, or rage. And he doesn't work alone. He has an extensive network of followers who will apparently do his every bidding. Our usual methods don't work with him, because he's a different breed than most of the killers we go after. We're going to use those differences against him."

"Use them how?" Rigsby wanted to know.

"I've been working on developing an approach that will help us do that." She turned the bulletin board around so it faced the team.

Over half the board was covered by a large map of California, which was stuck full of multi-colored pins. Across the top, there was a timeline with notes, dates, and pictures of every individual who had ever surfaced in connection to any Red John case the team had ever looked into. Jane recognized a family picture of himself with Angela and Charlotte from his case file and repressed the urge to tear it down from the display. The right side of the board seemed to be devoted to the miscellaneous. It included index cards and post its with words and names such as "Cut Iron Properties," "He is mar," and "Sparrow's Peak" scrawled in Lisbon's familiar hand. In the center of this collection, there was a note saying "How does he choose them?" underlined several times. In addition, there were pictures and drawings scattered over the space. The familiar image of the macabre smiley face was there, but there was also a picture of a lone teacup with blue flowers which Jane recognized from the crime scene photos from the farm property where he and Lisbon had rescued Maya Plaskett. There were also pictures of complex surveillance systems, and a schematics drawing for an explosive device. It took Jane a moment to realize the schematics were for the bomb vest that had been strapped to Lisbon's chest for several hours on one of the most terrifying nights of his life.

Jane stared at the board, appalled. He had never seen such a thorough and complex visual representation of a collection of facts relating to a case outside those movies where the psycho killer's true nature is revealed when the police storm his basement and discover evidence of his obsession in the form of a wall of photographs of his victims. This particular representation was meticulous in its level of detail, but that was Lisbon for you. Apparently, when she decided to become obsessive about something, she was all in.

"Like I said, we're going to have to change our approach—" Lisbon began, but she didn't have a chance to finish her thought.

"This is what you've been doing all weekend?" Jane burst out incredulously. "You spent three days in the mountains building this crazy bulletin board?" She'd scared him half to death for an arts and crafts project?

She looked annoyed about being interrupted. "I had an idea to think through and I needed to be able to concentrate. I asked my friend if I could use her place and she said it was okay, so yeah, I spent the weekend up there working up a different perspective on this case."

"What friend?" Jane demanded.

"What does it matter?" she said, irritated. The rest of the team exchanged uneasy glances, clearly wishing they could be elsewhere during this exchange, but not knowing how to leave the meeting without drawing unwanted attention to themselves.

Jane ignored them. "Whose cabin was it?" he persisted.

She glared at him. "It was Bosco's cabin. He used to take the boys hunting up there. I called Mandy and asked if I could use it for the weekend and she said she didn't mind."

This brought him up short. Bosco's cabin. Lisbon had asked Bosco's wife to use their cabin? Lisbon hated to ask for favors. Yet she had felt this was important enough to merit asking for one from the wife of a man who had been in love with her. He knew she still felt guilty about that, even though she had never reciprocated Bosco's feelings. She'd trusted him, though. He scowled. If Bosco had been alive, she probably would have told him where the hell she was going when she decided to leave town for three days.

Lisbon took advantage of Jane's temporary distraction as he considered this thought to pick up where she had left off. "As I was saying," she said with a pointed look at Jane. "Obviously we're still going to take into consideration his choice of victims, but we're going to re-focus the investigation on his followers. Getting as much information from his followers as we can is going to be our top priority from here on out."

"But they're all fiercely loyal to him," Cho pointed out. "The ones who aren't end up dead."

"Look, all those people that he's gotten to follow him over the years didn't grow up in a bubble," Lisbon said. "They all have people who've known them, cared for them. It's always bothered me how he's managed to get such a complete hold on his followers. I want to know how he convinces them to give up their lives for him, to follow him unwaveringly. To do that, we need to reconstruct their histories, find out what led them to Red John in the first place. His network is like a spider web- we're going to identify all the connections in the web, and then we are going to use the common threads to lead us back to Red John."

Van Pelt was staring at the map. "What do the pins mean?"

"Red ones are victims that fit the profile of his original targets," Lisbon informed her. "Young women he killed by stabbing them while they were at home alone. Purple ones are the victims that he killed directly that deviate from the profile in some way. Yellow ones represent the last known location of his accomplices, and the green ones represent people killed by his accomplices."

Jane peered at the board. Each pin held a scrap of paper with a name and a date scribbled on it to the map. He saw a blue pin with his own name on it next to two purple ones in Southern California. "I see this blue one is meant to be me," he commented.

"That's right," Lisbon confirmed.

"Why do you have me in Malibu when I live in Sacramento?" he inquired.

She shook her head. "You only live in Sacramento because of your pursuit of Red John. You were in Malibu at the time you initially got involved in the case."

He scanned the rest of the map. "I'm the only blue one."

She shrugged. "You don't fit any of the other categories."

There was only one other pin without any other companion pins of the same color. This one was silver. He took note of it, but didn't inquire. He would let it be, for the moment.

Lisbon continued. "The whole concept behind what we're going to be doing here is similar to how those social networking sites work. Even if Red John's followers can't lead us to him directly, it's likely that at least some of them know each other, or know other people who also know him. And chances are that those people aren't as clever or as careful as Red John is. One of them will make a mistake, and that's how we're going to finally crack this thing."

There was a brief silence while everyone processed this. Cho was the first to speak up. "Where do we start?"

Lisbon checked her watch. "I have to go a ten o clock meeting with Bertram. We'll have to wait to dive into the details until I get back. This is going to our primary focus for foreseeable future, so go ahead and take a little time to tie up any loose ends you can on your other work. I'll be back in an hour and I'll give you your assignments then."

She left.

Rigsby exhaled. "Whew. It's a pretty big change from standard procedure. Think it'll work?"

Cho shrugged. "It's the best idea that anyone has come up with for this case in a long time. And what we've been doing hasn't been working, so a change is probably a smart idea."

Grace was still staring at the map. "It's brilliant."

Privately, Jane agreed with her assessment. It was such a straightforward idea, elegant in its simplicity. By reorganizing the evidence to sort through it using this new perspective, Lisbon had taken everything they'd ever done to catch Red John and turned it on its head. This paradigm shift opened up possibilities he had never considered before.

The others continued to discuss the elements of the board, throwing questions back and forth.

Jane tuned them out. He only had one question about Lisbon's new approach to the case...

Why hadn't he thought of it first?


	7. Chapter 7

Lisbon returned in under an hour, which could mean that the meeting had either gone very well or very badly.

Jane, who had been watching for her out the window, met her by the elevator. "How'd your meeting with Bertram go?" he asked.

"It went well," she said, sounding extremely self-satisfied. He'd almost say she seemed smug, but Lisbon didn't really do smug. That was more his territory. "I got what I wanted."

"What was that?" he asked, falling into step beside her.

"I got Bertram to agree that the SCU will focus on the Red John case exclusively from here on out."

Jane stopped dead, honestly shocked. "What about new cases that come in?"

She paused in her march towards the bullpen and turned to face him. "We're going to farm them out among the other teams. I'll review them as they come in and will make recommendations as to the best way to reassign them."

Jane took a moment to process this. This was good news, for him. It was exactly what he would have wanted, had the choice been presented to him. For some reason, though, the idea of Lisbon arguing in favor of it was somewhat discomfiting. "I'm surprised you were able to convince him to do that."

"He wasn't happy about it," Lisbon conceded.

"How did you persuade him?"

"I pointed out to him that this is the highest profile case the CBI has ever had. The fact that we haven't been able to catch California's most notorious serial killer is an embarrassment to the bureau. Red John is a sophisticated killer with lots of powerful connections and seemingly unlimited resources, so going after him with anything less than the full weight of the bureau isn't going to get the job done. Catching him is going to require complex strategic thinking and the full attention of the entire team. We've been splitting our focus too long, and that's a big part of why we haven't made the progress we'd like on the case."

"And he bought that?"

"He did when I framed it by saying that we're not just trying to catch Red John, which would be a huge win for the CBI in and of itself, we're trying to bring down his entire network. I told him to do that, we need dedicated resources for the task. I convinced Bertram that if the FBI had this case, they'd have a team of ten people on it full time. He wasn't crazy about the comparison, but he said he'd consider hiring extra staff to support the other teams to pick up the slack on the new cases that we normally would have handled."

"Nicely done, Lisbon," Jane said approvingly.

"There's more," Lisbon informed him.

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I told Bertram neither I nor any member of my team would be providing him with status updates on the case until the case is closed."

He stared at her. "How did you manage that?"

She shrugged. "I told him I didn't trust him. I told him no one outside my team was above suspicion, including him."

Interesting. He'd never had much use for Bertram, himself, and he had had his suspicions from time to time about whether he might have been a mole for Red John, but then, he was suspicious of everyone. For the most part, however, he had always assumed the man was a harmless narcissist. The fact that Lisbon had independently formed her own suspicions about Bertram cast the situation in a different light. "What else did you say to him?"

"I told him until I can be one hundred percent certain he will never leak information to Red John, it isn't safe to share updates on our progress even within the bureau. I said if he isn't working for Red John, I'm sure he can appreciate the need to take every precaution against moles within the bureau, given what happened with Bosco and O'Laughlin. And if he is working for Red John, I'm going to make it as hard as possible for him to get anything useful to report back to his boss."

"You painted him into a corner," Jane realized, impressed. "If he didn't agree to go along with your plan, he was as good as admitting he was in league with Red John."

Lisbon nodded. "Exactly."

Jane couldn't help it. He started to laugh. "Only you could manipulate someone by attacking them straight on with nothing but brutal honesty."

"I'm not sure I would put it exactly like that," she demurred.

"It's true. That would never have worked if Bertram didn't secretly believe that you're a better person than he is. If anybody else had tried that, he would have spouted off some nonsense about accountability and transparency and that would be that, but he knows he could never call your integrity into question."

Predictably, Lisbon brushed off the compliment. "I don't care why he agreed to it, I'm just glad I was able to convince him to limit our new cases so we can focus on the Red John case. Now, come on, stop distracting me, I promised the team I would give them their assignments once I got back."

He followed her into the bullpen.

Cho and Van Pelt looked up when she came in, but Rigsby was on the phone.

"Who's he talking to?" Lisbon asked impatiently, jerking her head in Rigsby's direction.

"His nanny," Cho responded.

"He always calls her about this time to check in on Ben," Van Pelt explained.

Lisbon nodded, her face softening.

Rigsby hung up the phone. "Sorry, boss," he said sheepishly. "Just needed to check in with Consuela."

"Don't apologize," Lisbon told him. "Your kid comes first. Always. You know I understand that." She smiled at him, that special soft smile she seemed to reserve for children. "How's Ben?"

"He's good. Getting bigger every day. At least, it seems that way as the person who has to keep buying him new clothes," Rigsby said ruefully.

"Give him a kiss for me when you go home," Lisbon instructed him.

Rigsby grinned. "That an order?"

"Damn straight," Lisbon agreed.

Cho cleared his throat. "What about orders for the rest of us? You said you would give us our assignments when you got back."

Lisbon snapped to attention, shifting seamlessly from doting godmother to Special Agent in Charge in a matter of seconds. "Right. We already discussed our basic approach. We're going to go after Red John's allies and dig up everything we can on every one of them. We're going to interview everyone they've ever known or even been remotely associated with."

She went over to the murder board and gestured to the map, indicating each of the points represented by the pins in turn. "Here are the key players: Orville Tanner, Red John's accomplice in his first known killing, and his son, Dumar, who helped Red John kill Emma Plaskett in exchange for the opportunity to hold her sister, Maya, hostage because he thought he was in love with her. Rebecca Anderson- infiltrated the CBI by posing as a receptionist and killed Sam Bosco and his team. Todd Johnson, cop killer who was burned alive in the CBI headquarters. Craig O'Laughlin, FBI agent who killed Johnson and tried to kill Hightower. Anthony Gupta, gas station manager who killed Hightower's cousin, Max James, and Cash in Motion employee Alan Dinkler. Then there's Timothy Carter, who kidnapped a young girl and pretended to be Red John, apparently on his orders. His wife, Sally Carter, was his accomplice in the kidnapping, but we aren't sure of the extent of her connection to Red John. We've also got Ron Deutsch, the security guard who stole the gun Timothy Carter was carrying when Jane shot him to make it look like Jane had gone off the deep end and killed an innocent man."

She turned back to face the rest of the team. "This is a big list, and if we're going to have any hope of getting through it before the end of this decade, we're going to have to divide and conquer. We'll each take a couple of Red John's accomplices and run down everything we can on those individuals. Everybody with me so far?"

The team nodded their assent, and Lisbon continued. "Okay, here are your assignments: Rigsby, you'll take Rebecca Anderson and Todd Johnson. Start by compiling histories of each of them and getting together a list of known associates."

Rigsby nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

She turned to her second in command. "Cho, you're going to take Anthony Gupta and Ron Deutsch. Same deal, try to find out as much as you can about anyone who worked with them or might have known them socially."

"Will do," Cho said, in his usual expressionless manner.

She looked at Van Pelt. "Grace, you've got O'Laughlin."

Jane was a little surprised by this, thinking Lisbon might have assigned the FBI agent to someone else on the team due to Grace's personal history with the man, but when he looked at Van Pelt to gauge her reaction, her expression was hard and her jaw was set in grim determination. "You got it, boss."

"I know it's a long shot since we never knew anything about her but her first name, but see if you can come up with anything on that woman he hired to kill Hightower in that hotel room," Lisbon told her.

"Isla, right?" Van Pelt. "Sure, I'll see what I can find out."

"Jane, you'll take Dumar Tanner, aka Ted Hardy, as well as Timothy and Sally Carter." She released a breath. "I'll be following up on Orville Tanner and Rosalind Harker."

"Ah, the silver pin," Jane said. "Yes, I see why you kept her separated from the rest of the pack. She doesn't seem to believe the man she knows as Roy Tagliaferro is Red John, so she hasn't helped him kill anyone, and yet, she's still alive. Everyone else who has crossed paths with Red John who wasn't also a murderer has ended up dead eventually. She seems to be the exception."

Lisbon nodded. "Right. Like you, she doesn't fit the pattern, but in a different way."

"Should we go ahead and get started, boss?" Cho asked.

"Not just yet," she told him. "I have a few more things I want to go over."

"What things are those?" Jane asked curiously. Lisbon was just chock full of surprises today.

"Security measures," she informed him before turning once more to address the team. "Red John has powerful allies, and has proven that he is not only able to infiltrate the CBI headquarters physically, but that he can also breach a secure firewall to hack into CBI mainframes. We also know that he has familiarity with surveillance techniques. So we are all going to follow a few basic rules to do everything we can to prevent him from finding out what we have on him." She cast a meaningful look at Jane. "Compliance with these rules is not optional. If anyone feels the rules are unimportant, or that he is somehow above the rules, then that person will no longer be welcome to participate in this operation. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," Jane said, disgruntled.

"Do you agree to abide by the rules I set?" Lisbon asked him, abandoning any pretense that her warning was aimed at anyone on the team besides him.

"Well, I can hardly agree to follow a set of rules before I know what they are," Jane said reasonably. "Let's hear them."

"Fine," Lisbon said, looking annoyed that he hadn't agreed straight away. Really, didn't she know him at all? Honestly, if he hadn't been difficult about her precious rules, it probably would have made her even more suspicious. "Rule number one: No one breathes a word about this investigation to anyone outside this team."

Off the team's affronted looks, she held up a placating hand. "I know you think it goes without saying. I'm not saying I don't trust you all to be discreet—just the opposite, in fact. I'm saying nothing goes outside the team for any reason, no matter how harmless it may seem. Not to friends, not to family members, not to other agents. I already told Bertram we would not be keeping him in the loop on this, so if the boss's boss shows up and tries to bully you into giving him a status update on the case, I want you to let me know right away."

"You got Bertram to agree to stay off our backs on this?" Cho asked.

"Yes. He agreed that safeguarding the integrity of the investigation against moles is of the utmost importance, given the history of the case," Lisbon said smoothly. Jane noticed she left the details of her manipulation of Bertram out of this explanation.

"Nice," Rigsby said approvingly.

"I'm serious, guys," Lisbon said. "If the governor himself shows up in the bullpen asking for information about the case, you don't say a word. You just direct him to me and I'll handle it."

"What's the next rule?" Grace wanted to know.

"Rule number two is that you sweep for bugs everywhere you go. I know it's a pain," she acknowledged, catching Rigsby in an unconscious grimace, "but I think it's a necessary precaution. CBI security has been breached before and it seems unlikely that word of what we're doing won't get back to Red John eventually once we really get going on the interviews. I don't want to give him any kind of advantage over us if we can possibly help it. If he finds out what we're doing, so be it, but I intend to make him work for it. So just like I made you guys do this morning, we do a full sweep of the office every day. If we're all out of the office at the same time, first person back does a second check."

Jane raised his eyebrows. Apparently the team hadn't been idle while he'd been brooding in the attic that morning, if Lisbon had already had time to drill them in sweeping for bugs. It was about this time that he realized that what Lisbon had been doing all weekend wasn't remotely comparable to an arts and crafts project. She hadn't been simply brainstorming during her retreat in the mountains. She'd been bunkering down like a general preparing her battle strategy, drawing battle plans for a war she intended to wage on multiple fronts.

Lisbon went on. "This doesn't hold true just for the office—I want you checking your homes and cars, too. I have RF detectors for all of you, and I expect you to use them." Jane wasn't entirely certain what an RF detector was, but he deduced that it was some kind of electronic device cops used to help them locate unauthorized surveillance equipment. Lisbon fixed each team member with a look. "I will personally be calling each of you to nag you about this until we're all in the habit of checking automatically. On a related note, I have burner phones for all of you as well, and I want you to use them for anything related to the case. You can still use your normal cell phones for personal use, but if you are going somewhere for an interview you have to leave your regular cell at the office or disable the GPS and turn it off before you take it with you. I want you to disable the GPS units in your cars, too."

Jeez. And people called Jane paranoid. She was right, though. By this point, their paranoia had been well justified. Taking these precautions might not stop Red John from learning what they were doing, but it would make it a damn sight harder for him.

"Also, I don't want you using credit cards for fuel and meals when you're in the field. I don't want our movements to be easily traceable. Jane's in charge of petty cash," she said, handing him a hundred dollar bill as she made this announcement. "If you need cash, go to him and he'll give you what you need."

Jane was a bit taken aback to have been summarily elected class treasurer in this way, but he was not displeased. He inspected the hundred dollar bill with a glint in his eye. "You should have taken me to Tahoe with you," he admonished Lisbon. "I could have already established the petty cash fund with one night across the border in Reno."

She rolled her eyes. "Somehow I doubt you'll find it difficult to make up for lost time."

"Next rule," Lisbon continued. "I want all of you to check in with at least one member of the team every few hours. Not by email or text, either. You have to check in either in person or by phone."

"Will there be code words?" Jane inquired. "Please tell me there will be code words."

"Yes," she replied without batting an eye. "Yours will be 'pain in the ass.'"

"Excellent. And I'll call you 'mein fuhrer.' It can double as code word and pet name."

She ignored him. "Once Red John figures out what we're doing, he's not going to be happy about it. We're going to have to split up a fair amount of the time to do the work, and we're more vulnerable when we're not together. I don't want to give him any opportunities to cherry-pick one of you out of revenge when you're away from the rest of the team."

"I'm really quite pleased about this plan, Lisbon," Jane informed her. "I have a question, though. Is the check in strictly a professional thing, or will you be open to philosophical discussions when we call you at three in the morning to assure you that we haven't been kidnapped by Red John?"

She rolled her eyes. "You may have ten hours to yourself every night without checking in. That's it."

That was almost too bad. Checking in during the day would be tedious, but he found he'd been quite looking forward to waking Lisbon up in the middle of the night and hearing her grumble at him sleepily while he tried to engage her in meaningful conversation. "Very well. Well, now that we have our marching orders, Captain, shall we get started?"

"I'm not finished," Lisbon informed him.

"There are more rules?" Jane said, aghast. How many more rules could she have come up with in one weekend?

Knowing Lisbon, it was probably a lot. He wasn't sure how many rules he could commit to following, even if it was to catch Red John. The few she'd mentioned already would be stretching him to the limit as it was.

"This is the last one," she assured him.

He sighed. "Let's have it, then."

"We know Red John or one of his helpers has hacked into the CBI mainframe at least once, so we need to be extremely careful about any activity we conduct on our computers."

She turned to Grace. "Van Pelt, I know you think I don't let you go out in the field enough—"

Van Pelt turned red. "I don't—" she started, but Lisbon cut her off.

"Don't bother denying it, I know you feel that way, and I understand. But the truth is, your skills are too valuable to waste you on running down perps. More often than not it's the evidence you find in people's financials or whatever in one of your computer searches that ends up giving the DA's office what they need to put the person in jail. We're all going to be relying on those skills more than ever on this case. Everyone else is going to be spending most of their time on interviews, but you're going to be bearing a heavier load than anyone else. You have your assignment to look into O'Laughlin, but I'm also going to need you to be the point person for looking into financials and property records for everyone we're investigating. You can delegate some of it to the rest of us as you see fit, but I'm officially making you head of cyber security for the unit. Everyone, including me, clears all computer activity through you." She looked at the rest of the team. "No one is to do so much as Google something unless Van Pelt okays it, understood?"

Jane relaxed. That last rule didn't really apply to him anyway. It was all about computers, and he never touched the infernal machines if he could help it. The rule about keeping things inside the team wasn't an issue—he didn't trust anyone outside the team and it wasn't like he had the busiest social calendar anyway, so that wasn't a problem. Ditto the use of the burner phone. Sweeping for bugs would be a bore, but he had a sinking feeling that Lisbon was right about it being a necessary precaution. He knew Lisbon was most worried about getting him to check in regularly, but he thought he could have fun with that one. His brain had already started calculating how many different ways he could annoy her during these check ins. He rather liked the idea of having a built in excuse to call and pester her even more frequently than he already did. Really, she would probably end up finding her own rule more burdensome than he did.

"One more thing," Lisbon said after she'd secured promises from everyone not to touch their computers without Grace's say so. She cleared her throat. "Listen, it's almost certain that this case is going to get a lot more dangerous before it's over. I want you to know that participation in this investigation is strictly voluntary. If anyone feels like it's getting too risky, or even if you just get sick of all the cloak and dagger stuff, I won't hold it against you. I'll make sure that you're taken care of, that you get a good position on another team."

Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt looked at her as though she'd suggested they dive headfirst into an empty swimming pool. "Of course we're staying," Van Pelt said indignantly.

Rigsby nodded his agreement. "We won't let you down, boss."

Lisbon looked to Cho. "Cho?"

"I'm in," Cho said. "Let's end this thing."

"Jane?"

What did she think, that after a decade of chasing the man, he was going to say no to a plan that had the potential to get them closer to him than they'd ever been before? Even if it hadn't been his idea. "Obviously, I'm staying."

She shook her head. "I meant, do you agree to the rules?"

Oh. Right. "I suppose I can abide by your little rules for the time being," he said, affecting a put upon sigh.

"All right then," she said. "Let's get to work."


	8. Chapter 8

Grace set to work right away. Lisbon saw her evict Rigsby from his chair so she could sit down at his desk, tapping away at his keyboard and muttering things like "secure server" and "proxy web service." Rigsby watched her, looking slightly disgruntled at having his desk taken over, but also sneaking covert glances at her that were anything but displeased when he thought no one was looking. He had been doing this a lot since he and Sarah had broken up two months before. Privately, Jane thought he ought to go for it, but Rigsby's near crippling timidity in this area seemed to have multiplied tenfold since Van Pelt had broken up with him over two years ago.

Lisbon ignored Rigsby's less than subtle staring at her junior agent, keeping an eye on Cho instead. Cho had pulled the file on Anthony Gupta and was making notes for himself. Lisbon watched him for a moment, feeling a pang in her chest, wondering if she was doing the right thing. Cho wasn't even fully healed—he wouldn't be cleared for full active duty for at least another week—and here she was asking him to do something that was probably even more dangerous than the operation that had gotten him shot. She'd thought she'd weighed the risks, these past few days at Bosco's cabin, but was she really prepared to face the consequences, if something—something _else_—happened to one of them? How would she live with herself, if she lost one of them because they'd followed the path she'd set forth for them?

No. She couldn't let thoughts like these rule her, or she'd never have the courage to go forward. She'd come up with a plan, and it was a good one. She'd considered every angle and she'd made her decision. She was committed to carrying out the plan, because the only alternative was to do nothing and just wait for Red John to strike again, and that was unacceptable. She'd done everything she could think of to mitigate the risks. She'd just have to trust to God for the rest.

"He'll be fine," Jane said, appearing at her elbow and handing her a cup of that god-awful tea he insisted was good for her blood pressure. He took a sip of his own tea. "They all will be."

"I know," she said with a certainty she didn't feel.

He grinned at her, clearly not buying into her false bravado. "You're as bad as a mother hen with her chicks."

She swatted him on the arm and took a drink of her tea. She grimaced. She didn't know Jane could drink that stuff. She put the tea down. "Come on, let's go. We need to get on the road and if we leave now, we'll have time to stop at Marie's so I can get a cup of coffee to wash the taste of this terrible tea out of my mouth."

Jane sighed. "One day, Lisbon, I will teach you to properly appreciate tea, and then you will never touch that vile beverage ever again."

"Maybe," Lisbon said amiably, "but that day is not today. Now hurry up, we've got a lot of ground to cover."

XXX

"So," Jane said to Lisbon as they waited in line at Marie's for Lisbon's coffee. "Where are we going?"

"San Angelo," she informed him.

"Where Sherriff Hardy lived and Emma Plaskett was murdered," Jane remembered. "I see you are wasting no time getting me started on my assignment."

"That's right," Lisbon affirmed.

"There's only one problem I can see."

"What's that?"

"I'm not actually psychic."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I killed Hardy when he tried to shoot you, remember? I can't actually commune with the dead. I'm not going to be able to summon his spirit to tell me who Red John is."

"Were you not listening to a thing I said this morning?" Lisbon said, exasperated. "Of course I don't expect you to commune with Hardy's departed soul. I want you to talk to the people who knew him when he was still alive."

Jane opened his mouth to reply, but they reached the front of the line and he was interrupted by a tall, skinny teenager asking for their order. Well, Lisbon's order, anyway. Jane recognized the cashier as an ardent admirer of hers. He'd never taken much of a shine to Jane, for some reason.

"Hi, Teresa," the gangly youth said, beaming at Lisbon. He ignored Jane. "What can I get for you today?"

"Hi, Jason," she said, smiling back at him.

Jason continued to smile at her goofily as she rattled off her order. Jane took the opportunity to step closer to her, placing his hand at the small of her back possessively as he watched the young man ogle her.

Lisbon, oblivious to the nature of the youth's attentions, was attempting to make small talk. "How's AP Chem going?" she asked him.

"All right," Jason said, swelling with importance under this expression of interest from his goddess. "Mr. Taylor's tough, but I've got a good study group and I'm doing pretty well."

"That's great. Keep up the good work," Lisbon said. "Listen, are you still interested in doing that internship this summer with the forensics unit that I told you about?"

"Definitely," Jason said enthusiastically. Jane had the feeling that most of his enthusiasm derived from the hope of seeing a lot more of the CBI's prettiest senior agent than any interest he had in forensics for their own sake.

"Well, let me know when you're ready to apply," she told him, reaching for her wallet to pay. "I'd be happy to write you a letter of recommendation."

"Wow, really?" the boy said, starry-eyed at this unforeseen opportunity for additional contact. "Thanks!"

Jane felt the need to insert himself into the conversation at this point. He reached out and placed a staying hand on Lisbon's own as she started to pull a few bills out of her wallet. "I'll get it, Lisbon."

She turned to him, surprised. "You don't have to do that. I've got it."

"I insist," he said gallantly, resisting the urge to cast a surreptitious look at Jason to see how he reacted to this evidence of his chivalry.

Lisbon, not one to look a gift coffee in the mouth, shrugged. "Okay. I'm going to grab us a table, then."

"Be right there," he told her, holding her gaze a fraction of a moment too long.

She looked at him oddly, then shook her head and went to find a table.

He watched her go, and then turned back to find Jason scowling at him.

"Hello, Mr. Jane," Jason said, all trace of enthusiasm gone. "May I take your order?" This he said in the tone in which one might say, "May I drop your dead body off a cliff and watch it be devoured by carrion eaters?"

Jane gave him a cool smile. "Certainly. I'll take a blueberry muffin, two bottles of water, and a bear claw."

"Coming right up," Jason said grudgingly. "Will there be anything else for you today?"

"Just Lisbon's coffee," Jane said.

Jason smirked. "I'll bring _Teresa's _latte right out."

Jane paid, feeling rather disgruntled at the notion that Lisbon permitted this little punk to call her by the familiar "Teresa" when she and Jane were still on a last name basis after knowing each other almost ten years.

He went over to the table by the window that Lisbon had chosen and deposited the water and pastries on the table. She gave him a small smile of thanks when he pushed the bear claw towards her.

Jason came over then, bearing Lisbon's latte. "Here you go, Teresa," he said, placing it before her like it was a box of precious jewels. "I put extra nutmeg in it for you, just the way you like it."

She smiled warmly at him. "Thanks, Jason."

"You're welcome," he said, shooting a superior look at Jane before returning his eyes to Lisbon and continuing to gaze at her adoringly.

"Shouldn't you be getting back to your other customers, Jason?" Jane asked sharply.

Jason cast a look at the rapidly expanding line at the register and swore under his breath, then hurried back to his place behind the counter.

Jane turned back to Lisbon. "Must you do that?" he asked crossly.

"Do what?" she said, startled.

"Flirt with the underage help," he said tartly.

She looked at him like he was crazy. "I wasn't flirting with him. All I did was ask him how chemistry class was going. I was just being nice."

"Well, a little nice from someone who looks like you goes a long way," Jane told her.

"You're being ridiculous. I'm old enough to be his mother, for God's sake."

"If you'd had him when you were nineteen, maybe."

"Plenty of people have kids when they're nineteen," Lisbon pointed out. "Technically, I am old enough to be his mom."

"Trust me, the way he looks at you is not the way a healthy young man looks at his mother," Jane said darkly.

"He's seventeen!"

"So? Seventeen year olds are not immune to the charms of an attractive woman. In fact, I would argue they are among the most susceptible."

"I'm sure he thinks of me the same way he would think of one of his friend's moms," Lisbon said firmly.

"As a MILF, maybe," Jane muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"I said, if he does think of you like a mom, he probably thinks of you as a MILF."

Lisbon looked appalled. "How do you even know that word?" she demanded.

"What?" he said defensively. "There were all kinds of magazines in that hospital waiting room. I may have perused a few."

"Well, I have never given birth, so there's no way I could be… that."

"That's not the point. If you were a mom, you'd be a MILF."

She shuddered. "Do me a favor, Jane, and never say that word again."

"Why not? It's apparently a well-known term in the popular vernacular. Why shouldn't I say it?"

"It just sounds wrong, coming from you."

"Fine, but you see my point about our young Lothario, here."

"He brought me a coffee," Lisbon pointed out. "Which is his job. It's not like he's writing me sonnets on his break time."

Jane thought about this. Jason was immature and romantic, and was probably enrolled in some kind of advanced English literature course. Of course, writing sonnets was no easy task, but if Jason could get a handle on the iambic pentameter, he might well make the effort. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Lisbon rolled her eyes at that. "Oh, please."

"I'm serious. He clearly has a crush on you."

"He does not," she said dismissively.

"You are astonishingly oblivious to your effect on the male population," he told her. "I assure you, you are decidedly sonnet-worthy, my dear. Any straight male with a pulse would find you a suitable muse, if he were inclined to the arts."

Lisbon blushed to the roots of her hair, clearly flustered, but she recovered herself and managed to turn her embarrassment into a glare. "Can we focus on the case, please?"

She was really the only woman he knew who could glare at a man after receiving such a compliment, he reflected. But then, Lisbon never received compliments comfortably, and charm only made her suspicious. Especially if it was coming from him. "Very well," he said smoothly. "Where were we? Ah, yes, you were telling me I should talk to people who knew Hardy when he was alive."

"Yes."

"I thought we were supposed to divide and conquer," Jane remarked.

"We are," Lisbon said, tearing off a piece of the bear claw and popping it into her mouth.

"Then why am I the only one who's being babysat on their assignment?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm not babysitting you. I am giving you a ride to San Angelo and dropping you off while I follow my own lead."

He frowned. "Which is what?"

"Honestly," she huffed. "You really weren't listening to a thing I said this morning."

"I was too," Jane said defensively. "You said I was to look into Hardy and you were going to look into his father, Orville Tanner. But Orville Tanner never lived in San Angelo, remember? Hardy only lived there the last ten years of his life, while his father was in prison."

"I'm aware of that," Lisbon said with exaggerated patience. "But Tanner once owned property in that county, and I can't believe that's a coincidence. Besides, I also said I was going to talk to Rosalind Harker, and she only lives fifteen miles north of San Angelo."

"Ah," Jane said. And then, "Perhaps we could visit her together. We could interview the townsfolk of San Angelo together and then head north afterwards. I'd like to see her again."

Lisbon shook her head. "No. I want to interview her alone."

Now that was intriguing. "You don't want me to see Rosalind again?"

"I didn't say that. You could come by and say hello. I just don't want you to be at the interview."

"Why not?"

"You're a distraction," she answered bluntly.

"To you or to her?" he asked with a roguish grin.

Lisbon didn't take the bait. "You always want to be in the limelight. You can't stand not being the center of attention. As a result, you are inevitably a distraction to any individual who is available to be distracted in any given situation."

"Fine," he huffed. "I'll interview the townsfolk alone. Since you've apparently planned every nuance of this investigation in advance, I suppose you have an idea of who I should start with?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."

"And who would that be?"

She finished off her bear claw. "Well, I'm not one to micromanage," she said primly, ignoring his snort of disbelief, "but if I were you, I'd start with Maya Plaskett."


	9. Chapter 9

In the end, Jane ended up taking the car to San Angelo, dropping off Lisbon at Rosalind's house with a promise to pick her up later that afternoon. He had a nice chat with Rosalind for a few minutes before Lisbon got fidgety and he deemed it prudent to excuse himself.

He found Maya Plaskett in a dive bar called Rusty's Tavern in the center of town, serving as a bartender.

Gone was the fresh-faced, if frightened young girl he remembered from four years ago. In her place was a woman with hair dyed a dark red, wearing a blowsy top and a wary expression. Heavy dark lines of eyeliner framed her eyes and she wore lipstick that was several shades too dark for her skin tone.

It was the middle of the day, so the bar wasn't crowded, but it wasn't empty, either. Most of the patrons were settled in corner tables or were gathered around the pool table, however, so Jane felt fairly assured of having a relatively private conversation when he went straight to the bar.

"What'll you have?" Maya said without looking up from the glass she was drying.

"Sasparilla and soda," Jane told her, taking a seat on the barstool nearest the tap.

"What?" Maya did a double take.

He gave her a gentle smile. "Hello, Maya. Do you remember me?"

She gave him a wry smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'd hardly be likely to forget, given the circumstances under which we met. How are you, Mr. Jane?"

"I'm well. I can see the same can't be said for you, however."

She stiffened. "What do you mean?"

"Well, look at you. You're obviously unhappy."

She looked away. "No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are. You're miserable. Still grieving for your sister, suffering from survivor's guilt, wondering why she was the one chosen to die while you were spared. You're looking for something to drown the pain, or at least to dull it, but you won't turn to drugs because you secretly believe that's what got you into this mess in the first place. You try alcohol sometimes but you're afraid of going too far down that path because you're afraid of becoming like your mother, relying on a bottle to get you through the day. So instead you try to distract yourself with sex, engaging in a series of one night stands, but never getting attached, never letting anyone get close. You allow men to use you because deep down you believe you don't deserve to be treated any better." Jane shook his head. "You and your sister were good students. You should be in college somewhere, preferably far away from this place, but instead of setting the world on fire with new ideas, here you are, slinging drinks in a run down bar in the middle of the day."

She drew back. "Was there something you wanted?" she asked coldly.

"Yes. I want you to stop blaming yourself for what happened to your sister, and for what happened to you."

"That's what you came here to tell me?" she said disbelievingly.

"No. I came here to ask you how you met Sherriff Hardy."

Her expression grew even more guarded. "I don't want to talk about him," she said shortly.

"Not even if it could help avenge your sister's death?"

She looked at him. "What good would that do? She'll still be gone."

"Please, Maya. It could help us catch her killer. Prevent other people from being hurt by him."

She was quiet for a moment. "All right. Ask your questions," she said finally.

Jane repeated his earlier question. "How did you first meet Sheriff Hardy?"

She frowned. "I don't know. I've always known him. He's the sheriff, you know? Everybody knew him."

"When was the first time you remember meeting him?"

"I dunno. I'd known him since I was a kid. He was a friend of my brother's, so he used to come over to the house a lot."

Something prickled at the back of Jane's neck. "How did your brother know him?"

"Hardy caught him trying to buy cigarettes at the service station one time when he was still underage. But instead of busting him, he bought him a pack and they sat behind the station and smoked it together. They got to be pretty good friends after that."

Jane frowned. "When was that?"

Maya thought back. "I was about twelve when that happened, so Drake must have been seventeen."

"Did Drake tell you about it?"

She shook her head. "No. I remember it because my dad found out. He was furious. He threatened to have Hardy kicked off the police force. My dad is kind of scary when he's mad, you know? But Hardy, he was cool as a cucumber. He told my dad he didn't want Drake to be a smoking addict like him, so he'd bought him the pack and made him smoke the whole thing so he'd be sick and never want to touch a cigarette again. Dad ate it up. I heard Drake and Hardy laughing about it later. I think that was what sealed the deal, for Drake. He admired Hardy for putting one over on Dad."

"Your dad never found out the truth?"

"No. He was Hardy's biggest fan after that. He even helped him when he ran for sheriff the next year, after Tom Cassidy died in that freak accident."

"Did he and Drake spend a lot of time together?"

"A fair amount. Emma and I always thought it was kind of weird, because Hardy was a few years older than Drake, but Drake always had a hard time making friends his own age, and we figured Hardy must have felt sorry for him."

"Do you know anyone else he spent a lot of time with?"

She shrugged. "He got along with most everybody, as far as I know."

"Nobody stands out?"

"I guess he was pretty good buddies with the other guys on the police force. A lot of them have a poker game they play in every week at lunchtime. He was kind of the ringleader of that group."

"Every week? What day of the week was that?"

"Wednesday, I think. Why do you ask?"

"No reason," Jane lied. "Now, what about you?"

She blinked. "What about me?"

"Hardy was convinced he was in love with you," Jane reminded her. "Did he ever seem to take any special notice of you? Before he kidnapped you, I mean?"

She shifted uncomfortably and didn't answer right away.

"I'll take that as a yes," Jane commented. "When did you first notice he had a special interest in you?"

She avoided his eyes. "Right around when Emma and I turned sixteen, I guess."

"No," Jane said slowly, watching her. "There was a specific event that you're remembering. Tell me what it is."

She looked back up at him and glared. Her expression was so Lisbon-ish he had to hide a smile. "Fine. It was our sixteenth birthday, okay?"

"What happened?"

"Emma and I were getting ready to go out to dinner with some friends. We were all dressed up, and everything. Emma had lent me a skirt of hers that I'd always liked. Ted was at the house. He and Drake were going out to play basketball or something. Emma was in the other room, arguing with Dad. He thought we should stay home and have a family celebration, but Mom had already said we could go. We were going to do a family thing the next day, anyway, so Emma couldn't see why he was making such a big deal about it. Anyway, Drake was upstairs and I was in the hall waiting for Emma when Ted came in."

"What did he say to you?"

"He just stopped and looked at me. Then he smiled and said 'Well, Miss Maya, you look pretty as a picture tonight. Before you know it, you'll be all grown up. Once that happens, you'd better watch out, because I'm going to whisk you away from here. You're gonna marry me one day. Just you wait.'" She let out a breath. "It was weird, you know? The way he was looking at me. After that, he always greeted me by saying something about me being his future wife or something. It creeped me out. But I didn't take him seriously. I figured it was his idea of a joke."

"Did you ever tell anyone about this?" Jane wanted to know.

"Just Emma. She thought it was strange, too, but she didn't think much of it. She just said, 'What do you expect from someone off-kilter enough that he wants to be friends with Drake?'"

"You never mentioned this to Drake?"

She shook her head. "No. I didn't see the point. Like I said, I didn't take it seriously, at first." She let out a bitter laugh. "Little did I know he wasn't kidding about whisking me away and trying to make me his wife."

Jane tried to compute this information against what he already knew. "Did Drake ever say anything about what the two of them did when they spent time together?"

She shrugged. "Not really. They played basketball sometimes, like I said. And video games, I think. But Emma and I never really paid that much attention to what Drake did."

"It was always you and Emma against the world, huh? Neither of you cared what was going on outside your little bubble, as long as you had each other."

"Pretty much," she admitted. "We were terrible brats about it. Poor Drake. No wonder he was lonely."

"And he never noticed his friend had an eye on his little sister?"

"I guess not."

"Drake never mentioned that he was friends with Hardy," Jane said, considering this.

"Well, they sort of stopped hanging out about a year before Emma was killed. So Ted didn't hang around as much after that."

That got Jane's attention. "Did they? Why was that?"

"Beats me. They had some sort of falling out, but I never knew what it was about."

"Interesting."

They were both silent for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts.

"You know what was funny?" she said eventually.

"What's that?"

"I always wondered how he knew it was me, that night."

"What do you mean?" Jane said, roused from his own contemplations.

"Most people couldn't tell me and Emma apart," she explained. "Even Mom and Dad and Drake got us mixed up sometimes. And I was wearing Emma's clothes. But he knew it was me. It wasn't just that night, either. Every time I saw him, he always knew it was me."

"You have a freckle, just here," Jane said, touching his own neck to indicate the place he meant. "It's very faint. Most people probably don't notice it. Emma didn't have any freckles."

"Huh," she said, bemused. "You remember that, after all this time, after just seeing a few pictures of us?"

He shrugged. "That's why the CBI keeps me around."

"Guess you're earning your paycheck, then."

"I do what I can. I notice things, and I'm a good guesser. Sometimes that helps us catch criminals."

"Do you still work with Agent Lisbon?" she asked.

"Yes, I drove up here with her."

"Say hello to her for me," Maya said, sounding almost wistful. He remembered opening the door in that basement. Lisbon flashing her badge, and going to Maya, telling her it was going to be all right. Himself, standing uncertainly in the doorway, while Lisbon put her arms around the frightened young woman and told her she was safe.

"I will," he promised.

They chatted for a few more moments, and then Jane told her he ought to be going.

He stood to leave, then hesitated. "Can I ask you one more question?"

"Yeah?"

"Hardy could have picked either one of you," Jane mused. "Why do you think he chose you?"

"You think I don't ask myself that question every damn day?" Again, she gave him that wry smile that didn't touch her eyes. It was a smile meant to conceal all manner of things. Pain. Weariness. And above all, a sense of being lost, with very little hope of ever finding one's way again.


	10. Chapter 10

Before he left to look for Maya Plaskett, Lisbon watched Jane with a familiar mix of exasperation and affection as he poured on the charm for Rosalind. She'd told him he could come in and say hello, and of course Jane interpreted this as license to make himself at home at Rosalind's kitchen table and settle down with a cup of tea for a nice cozy chat.

Rosalind seemed pleased to see him and it seemed the feeling was mutual. Apparently they had bonded the last time they'd seen each other. Jane displayed a special grace with her, winning smiles from her with a combination of his usual cheeky charm and a softer tenderness Lisbon saw from him much more rarely.

Lisbon couldn't help rolling her eyes when he happily accepted a second cup of tea, however. Catching her look, he grinned at her as though to indicate he was Jane and just couldn't help himself. If she set forth boundaries, he felt compelled to push up against them.

He excused himself eventually and Lisbon was left alone with Rosalind.

Rosalind turned her unseeing gaze towards her with a smile. "Well, what can I do for you today, Agent Lisbon? I know you aren't here for a social call."

"No, I'm not," Lisbon admitted. "I came to talk to you about Roy Tagliaferro."

Rosalind's smile faded. "You still think he's that man. Red John. The one who killed Patrick's family."

"Yes, I do," Lisbon said frankly.

Rosalind's jaw developed a stubborn set to it. "You're wrong. Roy couldn't be that man. He couldn't do such things."

"It's possible you're right," Lisbon conceded. "We might be mistaken about Roy's true identity."

"You don't believe that. You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"Personally, I believe Roy and Red John are the same man," Lisbon said calmly. "I know we disagree about this, but I acknowledge the possibility that we might be wrong about whether they are the same person. All I'm asking is that you answer some questions about Roy to help my team figure out for sure whether he is or is not Red John."

"Why should I help you, if you're determined to find Roy guilty?"

"If Roy is innocent, then what's the harm in answering my questions?" Lisbon countered. "It could help prove his innocence. I'm not determined to find him guilty, as you put it. If the evidence shows that he's innocent, I will be content with that. The only thing I am determined to do is find the truth. And if he's guilty, don't you feel some obligation to help us find him so we can prevent him from hurting anyone else?"

Rosalind was silent for a long moment. "Very well," she said at last. "I will answer any question I can."

"Thank you," Lisbon said sincerely. "I really appreciate your help."

Rosalind sighed. "What do you want to know?"

"I'd like to you to tell me more about Roy as a person in general."

"Like what?"

"You spent a fair amount of time with him. What did the two of you talk about?"

"Oh, everything. Music, literature, philosophy." She smiled. "We once had quite a spirited discussion about Plato's Republic which I very much enjoyed."

"Tell me about it."

"Why on earth would you want to hear about something like that?"

"I'm trying to get a sense of who he is," Lisbon explained. "What interests him, what drives him."

"I can't see how that would help you."

"You'd be surprised. Sometimes the smallest details end up being critical to an investigation."

"Well, all right. I'll tell you about it, if you think it would be useful," Rosalind said doubtfully.

"I do," Lisbon assured her.

"Roy had some very interesting views on Plato's definition of justice, and whether a just man would fare better than an unjust man. He took Glaucon's view of the matter: he believed that the only reason a man would enter the societal agreement to behave in a just manner was because he fears punishment if he acts otherwise. I can't say I agreed with him on that point, but his analysis was fascinating. Very thorough and well-thought out."

"Hm," Lisbon murmured. She didn't think she needed Rosalind to further explain Red John's attitude regarding this issue.

"He did like Plato's idea of the philosopher kings, though," Rosalind continued.

"Philosopher kings?" Lisbon repeated.

"Yes, he believed there were some people who could see the truth of the universe more clearly than others, and that those people had a right to serve as leaders to ordinary mortals, to help them see beyond the constraints of their narrow understanding of the world."

Like that narrow-minded idea that murder was wrong and people shouldn't do it. Lisbon decided she'd heard enough about Red John's philosophical musings and returned to the more mundane issues at hand.

"When he came here, how long would he stay?"

"A couple of days, usually. Once he stayed for a week. That was a lovely week," Rosalind said wistfully.

"You seem to have a lot of fond memories of your time together," Lisbon commented. "Were there any times that were less pleasant? Did the two of you ever argue?"

Rosalind shook her head. "Not in the way you mean. We had lively conversations, that's all. We're both very opinionated."

"He never got upset with you?"

"No. I've told you, he's really a very kind and gentle person."

"Can you give me an example of something kind that he did?" Lisbon asked, trying to reconcile this version of Red John with the sadistic killer she knew him to be.

Rosalind considered this. "It was little things, mostly. Small gifts, thoughtful gestures. He brought me a bottle of perfume once. It smelled like jasmine. He knew that jasmine is my favorite flower, you see. It was a fragrance called 'Starry Night.' It reminded me of summer evenings in the garden."

Lisbon hesitated. "May I ask you something personal?"

"So far, all your questions have been personal."

"Well, this one is even more personal."

"Go ahead."

"What was Roy like, as a lover?"

Rosalind didn't seem the least bit embarrassed by the question. "Very attentive," she said, smiling in remembrance. "He paid a great attention to detail."

For some reason, this made Lisbon think of Jane.

"He didn't like to talk when making love," Rosalind continued. "He was quiet. Totally absorbed by touch."

That part didn't sound like Jane. Lisbon had a feeling he was the type who never shut up in bed. Although that probably wasn't entirely fair. He did have his quiet moments. Maybe it was just because even in moments of quiet intensity, Jane could still make you feel like you were having a conversation. One where more was communicated in a look than could be said in hours of talking.

Lisbon realized abruptly she'd gotten sidetracked musing about Jane's qualities as a potential lover. She was glad Rosalind couldn't see her blush, and profoundly relieved that the man in question wasn't there to intuit the reason behind it.

She refocused. It was interesting, learning about this other side of Red John. She just wished she knew what it meant.

Lisbon opened her mouth to ask another question, but was interrupted by the chiming of the grandfather clock in the corner, signaling the top of the hour.

"I'm sorry," Rosalind said. "Would you please excuse me, Agent Lisbon? I really must feed the chickens. They get very noisy if I'm late."

"Of course," Lisbon said.

"Please make yourself comfortable. I'll be back in a few moments."

"Would you mind if I looked around the house a little bit?" Lisbon asked. "You're under no obligation to, of course. I don't want to trespass on your privacy any more than I already have."

"Go ahead," Rosalind said with a smile. "I don't have any secrets to hide."

"Thank you."

Rosalind went out the back door to attend to the chickens, and Lisbon got up to look around. She meandered through the downstairs, noting the comfortable, if old fashioned furniture, the bookshelves lined with volumes in Braille. The piano in pride of place in the living room. When she got upstairs, she explored the guest room and bath for a few moments before heading into the master bedroom.

It was a pretty room, with lots of light streaming through the windows. Lisbon could imagine Rosalind sitting in the chair by the corner with a book, soaking in the warmth of the sun's rays, even if she couldn't see by its light. She saw the bottle of perfume Rosalind had mentioned on the dresser next to an old fashioned hairbrush and comb. Then she glanced over at the bed and froze when she saw the smiley face on the wall.

Jane had told her about it, of course, but she had never seen it for herself. She found that even though she'd known about it, it was still a shock to see it there, drawn over the center of the bed like some kind of perverse piece of art placed there in lieu of a headboard. She couldn't believe Rosalind slept under that thing every night. Although, she realized suddenly, it was possible she didn't know it was there. In fact, it was likely she wasn't aware of it at all. Rosalind didn't seem to have many visitors, and those she did have probably had little reason to go into her bedroom. When Jane had told Lisbon about it, he'd confessed he hadn't been able to bring himself to tell Rosalind about it, let alone explain its significance. It was one of the few times in Lisbon's memory that she'd seen Jane visibly unsettled by anything.

It was different than the other smiley faces. Smaller than the others. Also, less… drippy. Unlike his usual signature, it was not painted in blood. That made sense, Lisbon reasoned. After all, Rosalind was very much alive, and even she would have noticed if Red John had asked her to participate in some blood-letting in the name of an art project. Lisbon went over to inspect it more closely. It was still a brilliant red. If it had been drawn in blood, it would have faded to a dark rust color by now. Lisbon got out her pocket knife and a small evidence bag from her pocket—two things a good team leader should never be without—and carefully scraped a small amount of the stuff into the evidence bag, wondering what it was. Lipstick, was her guess. Not quite as disturbing as blood, but still intimate enough to be decidedly creepy.

Standing there staring at the thing, Lisbon found herself thinking back to an old case. The Wagner case. The whole team had been convinced it was a Red John case, but Jane had insisted it was a copycat killer. Red John was a showman, he'd said. He has a sense of theater. He wants the smiley face to be the first thing you see when you walk into a room where he's killed. He wants you to feel fear, and then see that your fears have come true.

So why had he put the mark here at all? Lisbon wondered. As far as she could tell, Red John had never killed anyone here. Why had he deviated from the pattern? Here, the smiley face wasn't the first thing you'd notice when you entered the room. Well, Lisbon amended, not unless you were making a beeline for the bed. She considered this. Maybe that was the point. Jane had always said that the smiley face was a way for Red John to claim ownership over his kills and the women he'd chosen as his victims. He and Rosalind had been lovers. Maybe the reason for the smiley face in her bedroom was simply a matter of staking a claim on her. Of marking his territory.

Lost in her thoughts, Lisbon made her way back downstairs slowly.

Rosalind, back in the kitchen, looked up when she heard Lisbon's light footsteps in the hall. "Find anything interesting?" she said with a smile. "I told you, I didn't have any secret mystery about me. I'm dreadfully ordinary, I'm afraid."

Lisbon was starting to suspect that in fact, just the opposite was true. "Rosalind," she said slowly. "Tell me about yourself."

"About me?" Rosalind said, clearly taken aback. "Why do you want to know about me?"

Lisbon sighed, dreading the conversation they were about to have, but knowing there was no way around it. Rosalind deserved to know the truth. "Rosalind, did Jane ever tell you about how Red John marks the scene when he's killed someone?"

Rosalind nodded. "Yes. He told me he draws a picture of a smiling face over the bodies of his victims."

"Yes."

Rosalind frowned. "Why are you bringing that up now?"

There was no way to break a piece of information to someone like this gently, Lisbon thought, so she might as well say it straight out. "There is one of those smiling faces on the wall in your bedroom," she said quietly.

Rosalind shook her head. "No. There can't be. Patrick said Red John draws them in blood. I would know if someone had been drawing pictures on my walls in blood."

"This one wasn't drawn in blood," Lisbon told her. "It's something else. But it's the same style, the same image."

"You're lying," Rosalind said stubbornly. "It isn't true."

"I'm not lying, Rosalind," Lisbon said firmly. "I wouldn't do that. I've never lied to you. If I were going to lie to you, I wouldn't start with something like this. It would be a greater lie to keep this from you."

"Show me," Rosalind demanded.

Lisbon trooped back upstairs with Rosalind at her heels. Lisbon moved the bed away from the wall and guided Rosalind towards the smiley face so she could verify its presence for herself.

Rosalind traced her fingertips along the outline. "It's sticky," she said, a look of revulsion on her face. "Or it used to be, anyway. What is it?"

"I don't know," Lisbon admitted. "I think it might be lipstick, but I could be wrong. We'll know for sure once I send a sample to the lab for analysis."

Rosalind drew her hand away from the wall. "I believe you now," was all she said, and then she turned on her heel and left the room.

Lisbon moved the bed back to its normal position so Rosalind wouldn't bump into it later, and then she rejoined the other woman downstairs in the kitchen once again.

Rosalind was pouring herself a cup of tea with shaking hands, looking rather shell-shocked.

"I'm sorry," Lisbon said, feeling horrible. She knew how useless the words would be to Rosalind, but they were all she had to offer. "I thought you would want to know."

"Yes, of course," Rosalind said, her voice sounding as though it were coming from a great distance away. "You were right to tell me." She curled her fingers around the cup of tea, the knuckles white. "You said you had some more questions for me?"

"We don't have to do that now if you need a few moments to collect yourself," Lisbon told her.

Rosalind shook her head. "No. You said you wanted to know more about me. I want to know why you think that is going to help you find this man, Red John."

"If Roy really is Red John, you are a fairly significant exception to his pattern," Lisbon explained. "I'm interested in finding out why that is."

Rosalind sighed. "What do you want to know?"

"How did you come to live in this house?" Lisbon asked. "It's awfully isolated for a young woman living alone."

"I've lived here since I was a little girl," Rosalind told her, a small half-smile gracing her lips. "It's been my home for almost as long as I can remember."

"You lived here with your parents?"

The smile faded. "No. I lived here with my grandmother. My parents were killed when I was very young."

"How did they die?" Lisbon asked curiously.

A shadow passed over Rosalind's face. "They were murdered," she said shortly. "The police never found out who killed them, or why."

"How old were you when they were killed?"

"I was just a baby. A little less than a year old."

"And your grandmother took you in after that?"

She shook her head. "Not right away. My parents and my grandmother had a falling out when my parents first got married, and they hadn't been in touch with each other for several years. She didn't even know that I had been born."

"Who took care of you, then?"

"I was in foster care for two years," Rosalind told her. "But there were some difficulties placing me after I lost my sight, so the foster system exerted a greater effort to find a blood relative to take me in."

Lisbon was surprised by this. "How did you lose your vision?" she asked. She'd assumed that Rosalind had been blind since birth, though now that she thought about it, she had no earthly reason to have come to this conclusion. Perhaps it was only that Rosalind seemed so self-possessed that it seemed difficult to imagine someone adapting so well to living without sight if they had lost the ability to see as an adult.

"The place I was in when I was in foster care… it was a terrible place. My foster parents owned a restaurant, and they would leave us children in the back when they had to mind the front. They had chemicals, cleaning products everywhere and they never troubled to child proof the place. I'm sure if it had ever been inspected by the health department it would have been closed down due to health code violations. But that's neither here nor there at this point, I suppose. The point is, when I was three years old, my foster brother threw lye in my eyes."

Lisbon drew a sharp intake of breath, horrified. "Oh, my God."

"I was in the hospital for three weeks," Rosalind told her. "I almost died. I'll never forget that feeling as long as I live. Like someone had thrown liquid fire into my eyes. The doctors repaired the burns to my skin, but they said I'd never see again."

"What happened to your foster parents?"

"They were charged with criminal neglect and were both sentenced to jail time. My foster brother was placed in a state home. Then the social worker found my grandmother, and she saved me. I came here to live with her, and she taught me to see in the dark. She taught me how to play the piano and how to bake cookies. She showed me how to get around on my own, how to live as a blind person."

"And you've lived here ever since?"

"For the most part. She thought I had a special talent with the piano, and she encouraged me to further my musical studies. When I was seventeen, I auditioned for a place at Juilliard, and I was accepted."

Lisbon was impressed. "That was an incredible opportunity. You didn't go?"

"No, I did go. I studied there for a year. I loved it. I had wonderful teachers and classmates, and I learned a tremendous amount."

"So what happened? Why did you leave?"

"When I was nineteen, my grandmother grew very ill. She tried to keep it from me, but I knew something was wrong. She didn't want me to abandon my studies, you see. But I came back here to visit and she finally admitted to me that she was sick. I stayed here to take care of her and never went back. She didn't approve of my choice, but I never regretted it. I stayed here with her for six years after that, and then one day, after all that suffering, she just slipped away. I was holding her hand and I felt the life leave her body." She smiled sadly. "After that, I didn't much feel like leaving here again."

"How long ago did your grandmother pass away?"

"About seven years ago. It was a little over a year after she died that Roy first came into my life."

Lisbon could see now how a charismatic stranger might have appealed to this lonely, grief-stricken young woman. She'd had so much loss in her life that having a charming, attentive man show up on her doorstep must have felt like God was finally rewarding her forbearance. Like he'd tailor made her a companion who shared her love of music and literature and delivered him right to her.

It all seemed entirely coincidental for Lisbon's liking. "You told Jane and me that Roy first came here because his car broke down nearby. He never said anything that made you suspect he might have sought you out on purpose, for some other reason?"

"No. What other reason could he have?"

Lisbon had no answer to this, unless it was to gain entry to her home and earn her trust so it would be easier to kill her, but he hadn't done that. None of this made any sense. Nothing about Rosalind's part in this story made any sense.

Rosalind didn't seem to be waiting for a response; she had moved on with her own thoughts. "He called me a precious jewel, once. More valuable than a chest of rubies."

"It sounds like he was very gentlemanly towards you," Lisbon commented.

"He was. And now you're telling me that man killed all those women. That he cut them up. Those hands that loved me killed other women and drew that mark in their blood. And then he made that same mark in my home." She shook her head. "I can't believe it. I still can't believe Roy would do something like that."

"I know he didn't show you that side of himself. That's why it seems strange to me that he would risk someone discovering his true identity by leaving his signature in your home."

"Why do you think he put it there?" Rosalind asked her. "Why would he put his mark in my room?"

"I'm not sure," Lisbon said. "I suspect it was a way for him to claim you as his own, but that's just a guess. I think he feels possessive towards you, and that's why he put the mark there."

"Do you think he wants to kill me?" Rosalind didn't sound afraid, merely interested.

"No, I don't," Lisbon told her honestly.

"Why not? That's what the mark usually means, isn't it?"

"Usually he doesn't leave the mark until he's already killed someone," Lisbon told her. "Besides, if he was going to kill you, why hasn't he done it already?"

Rosalind pursed her lips. "Yes, I see what you mean." She shook her head. "You know the crazy part?"

"What's that?"

"I know I should be upset about the mark, and I am. But it's not for the reason you'd think. At least, not only for that reason."

Lisbon was having a little trouble following this. "What reason is it, then?"

"I'm actually jealous," Rosalind said with an ironic smile. "Isn't that horrible? I mean, I don't want to die, of course. I'm not jealous of that. And I still can't really believe in my heart of hearts that Roy is capable of such things. But if he is this man you say, I'm jealous that there's something in me that he sees as equivalent to those other women. I suppose that's just vanity talking. I wanted to think I was special. But if he's who you say he is, and he really did put that mark on my wall, that proves that I'm not. I'm just another woman to be used for his own purposes. That's the part that gets me. That he made me just one of many, by putting that mark on my wall."

Lisbon had no idea what to say to this. "Do you want me to get rid of it for you?" she asked finally.

Rosalind nodded slowly. "Yes, I think that would be for the best. If you don't mind, that is."

"It's the least I can do," Lisbon assured her, still feeling guilty for the distress she had brought to this kind young woman.

Accordingly, Rosalind went outside to sit in the garden and Lisbon went upstairs armed with a bucket and a sponge, intent on wiping any trace of Red John's mark from Rosalind's life.

The damn thing wouldn't come off, though. She scrubbed at it for an hour and a half, and while she did a creditable job of removing the sticky residue, she couldn't manage to do more to the stain beneath than render it a blurry mess. Finally she called Jane and asked him to pick up some paint from the hardware store in San Angelo.

He was there within the hour.

He didn't say anything when he walked into the room with two bags of painting supplies. He just set down the bags and peeled off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves and handing her a roller before taking one himself and opening the first can of paint.

They painted in silence. Lisbon couldn't help sneaking glances at him every so often, watching him paint over the familiar smiley face. He didn't seem upset, just intent on the task at hand. But then, why should Jane be upset about removing the horrible face from Rosalind's wall? It was only the stain of his own guilt that prevented him from doing the same to the mark on the wall of his Malibu home.

She wondered if he would ever paint over that wall the way he was now, and if she would be there to help him when he did.

They made short work of it, working together. Afterwards, Rosalind insisted that they stay to dinner. Lisbon would have thought she'd have been pleased to be rid of her, given all the havoc she'd wreaked on Rosalind's worldview over the course of the afternoon, but then again, maybe she didn't want to be alone after the unpleasant revelations she'd suffered that day. This thought made Lisbon feel guilty all over again. She asked Rosalind if she would be more comfortable with a police detail watching the house for a few days, but Rosalind declined. Jane didn't accuse the woman of lying when Rosalind claimed she wasn't afraid, so Lisbon figured that was about as good of an assurance as she could reasonably expect to get.

After a warm good-bye to their host, Jane went outside to admire the garden, inhaling deeply as he paused by the honeysuckle vines.

Lisbon lingered in the doorway. "Rosalind, can I ask you one more thing? It's not about the case."

"What is it?"

"Do you remember what it's like, being able to see?"

"Bits and pieces."

"Do you think it's better, to have had sight, and then to lose it? Or do you think it would have been easier if you'd never been able to see at all?"

"I don't know," Rosalind said. "Perhaps it might have been easier, but I suppose there's no real way to know that. I know I wouldn't trade the memories I have, though."

"What do you remember the best?" Lisbon asked curiously.

Rosalind gave her a slow, brilliant smile, the memory clearly called up at the mention of it. "Red," she said. "I remember the color red."


	11. Chapter 11

Jane watched Lisbon out of the corner of his eye as she drove the pair of them away from Rosalind's house. She looked tired, he decided. He really shouldn't let her drive all the way back to Sacramento after the long day she'd had. Besides, he had other things on his agenda tonight.

Predictably, her eyelids started to droop not ten minutes after they'd been on the road. "You sure you don't want me to drive?" he asked. He already knew the answer, of course, but sometimes you had to observe the niceties of normal conversation in order to steer it in the direction you wanted.

Her grip tightened on the wheel and she straightened in her seat. "I'm fine."

"You're obviously exhausted," he remarked. "You had to have gotten up unspeakably early to drive all the way back to Sacramento from Tahoe this morning. I'd say about five am, or a little before. Plus I'm betting you didn't sleep all that well while you were up there because you were working so hard. Kept waking up, thinking about new avenues of investigation."

She sighed. "Must you always do this?"

"Do what?"

"Analyze my every move for your own amusement. Just say what you want to say."

"Perhaps we should stop somewhere for the night," he suggested.

"I told you, I'm fine."

"I know. But you can't deny that you're tired. Besides, I have a couple of things I want to follow up on in San Angelo tomorrow, and it seems like a waste of time to drive all the way back up here when we could easily stop somewhere along the road and get a fresh start in the morning."

That got her attention. "What things?"

"Just… things," he said evasively.

"Jane, I can't have you do that anymore," she said seriously.

"Do what?" he said, feigning ignorance.

"Not tell me what you're planning. What we're doing is too important. I need you to keep me in the loop on this from now on."

"I will," he promised. "I just want to ask around about Hardy at the police station, that's all."

"That's all? Why do I have a bad feeling about the way you said that?"

He grinned. "I have the perfect plan of attack in mind."

"Lord help us," she muttered.

"So, can we stay?"

"I don't know, Jane," she sighed. "I was kind of looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again."

He'd have been more excited about going back to Sacramento if he was going to sleep in her bed again, too. As it was, after sleeping in Lisbon-scented sheets for four nights, the thought of going back to his hotel or the CBI held very little appeal. Sleeping a room away from her on the other hand, was a far more attractive prospect. "If we stay here tonight, we'll have enough time to stop by and put another coat of paint on in Rosalind's room in the morning."

"It probably could use a second coat," she admitted.

"There you go. We can take care of that first thing, and then head back down to San Angelo."

She frowned. "I didn't really plan on staying up here tonight. I didn't bring enough cash with me for two hotel rooms for the night."

He made a show of producing the hundred dollar bill she'd given him earlier that day from behind her ear like it was a shiny new quarter. "You forget, Lisbon. I am in charge of petty cash."

She glanced over at him, her expression full of healthy skepticism. "This may be the back of beyond, but this is the twenty-first century. No way are we going to find a hotel around here with rooms for less than fifty bucks a night. I know you like to play at magic, Jane, but even you can't make money materialize out of thin air."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, if I were you," he said confidently.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked suspiciously.

He grinned. "There's an Indian casino five miles from here, and it has a hotel across the street."

She sighed. "Fine. But you're buying breakfast in the morning."

He smiled. "With pleasure, my dear."

Xxx

It was a little before eleven o clock when Jane headed back to the hotel to knock on Lisbon's door, his pockets full of cash.

She blinked at him when she opened the door. "That was fast," she remarked. He'd been gone barely more than an hour and a half.

"Meh," he said modestly. "I thought it would be better not to make too big of an impression, so I called it quits when I was only ten thousand ahead." Truthfully, he had hurried through the last couple of hands in order to catch her before she went to sleep. Looking at her now, he concluded his exertions had been well worth the effort.

He felt a familiar ache in his chest at the sight of her. She was wearing cotton shorts and one of those tank tops with the very thin straps, exposing the freckles scattered over her chest and shoulders. He couldn't explain it, but her freckles had a particular power over him. Her hair, cascading over her shoulder, was still wet from the shower.

She smelled so good he could taste it on the back of his tongue.

He couldn't remember when the ache had first visited him. Sometime after she punched him in the nose for the first time, and before he'd picked up a shotgun to save her, he thought. It might have been around the time he made her that first paper frog. Although now that he thought about it, it was entirely possible that the frog was a symptom of the ache, rather than an indication of its origin. He'd gotten good at ignoring the ache over the years, but there were occasionally times like these when it snuck up on him and threatened to topple him headlong into doing something foolish, like stepping closer with the express purpose of bringing himself within touching distance.

He stared at the freckles on her bare shoulders for a second longer before averting his eyes and letting his gaze fall on a bunch of papers scattered over the bed. "Still working, I see," he said, exasperated. "Were you ever planning to take a break, or were you just going to continue until you collapsed from exhaustion?"

"Just jotting down some notes while the details of my interview are still fresh in my mind. Some of us can't rely solely on our memory palaces to keep all the facts straight," she said ruefully.

"I see," he said, looking back at her.

She was still looking at him expectantly. "So, what's up?"

"Hm?" he said, distracted this time by her collarbone. Lisbon had a very nice collarbone. It seemed the ache had a mind of its own today. He fixed his eyes firmly on hers, determined not to exhibit this intolerable lack of control the ache seemed to bring out in him.

She raised her eyebrows. "Did you have a specific reason for coming here?"

He smiled at her. "Aren't I supposed to be checking in?"

"Yes, you are," she agreed. "Yet somehow I suspect that was not your motive in coming here."

"Maybe I was just hoping for an opportunity to check out your legs," he said, allowing his gaze to drift down to her bare legs. "They look quite fetching in those shorts, by the way. You have fantastic legs, my dear, have I ever told you that?"

She rolled her eyes, but couldn't hide the faint flush that stained her cheeks at his comment. "Seriously, Jane, why are you here?"

To see her again, after four nights and three days of not seeing her and worrying that he might be forced to face his worst remaining fear. He held up his winnings. "To deliver the petty cash fund, of course."

She looked at the cash, but made no move to take it. "You should hang on to it."

"You provided the stake, you keep the profits," he told her. "That's how it works."

She shook her head. "The idea of carrying that much cash around makes me nervous. You keep it and give it to the team when they need it."

He shrugged. "As you wish."

She fidgeted, and he could tell she was feeling self-conscious about him seeing her so informally attired. "Was that all you came by for?"

"No," he told her. "I thought you would want to compare notes on what we learned today with your 'divide and conquer' strategy. We didn't have a chance to discuss it, earlier."

"You're right, we didn't," she said, her unease vanishing as she shifted back into CBI agent mode from her brief lapse into Teresa in shorts and a tank top in front of her wayward consultant mode. "Okay, come on in. Tell me about what you found out."

She let him in and went to the bed to sit down, crossing her legs Indian style as she looked at him expectantly. He chose the lone chair in the room and sat down, facing her. "Hardy was friends with Emma and Maya's brother," he announced.

"Drake?" she said, frowning. "Weird."

"Definitely weird," he agreed. "Interesting that he never mentioned that, isn't it?"

She considered this. "Not necessarily," she said at last. "We didn't suspect Hardy when we talked to him, so why would he bring it up?"

"Fair point," Jane conceded. "Still, there's something off about the whole situation. Maya told me Hardy started making inappropriate comments to her right when she turned sixteen, and the brother never noticed?"

Lisbon frowned. "That long ago?"

"On her sixteenth birthday, Hardy told her he was going to marry her. He had to have been at least twenty-five at the time."

Lisbon shuddered. "Creepy. I had no idea his obsession with her went that far back."

"Definitely creepy," Jane agreed. "What about you? Did you find out anything new from Rosalind?"

She sighed. "Well, if Red John targeted her for a specific reason, I'll be damned if I can figure out what it was. He sure as hell made sure she never suspected a thing, that's for sure."

She went on to tell him what she'd learned about Rosalind's past, but while he found it interesting, he had to admit he couldn't see how it had any bearing on the case. They continued discussing the case for awhile, the clock clicking closer to midnight as they shared their thoughts on what they'd learned that day.

Lisbon had moved her notes aside and was stretched out on the bed by this point, her head propped up on her hand as they discussed the particulars. "I still can't believe Rosalind just let this complete stranger knock on her door and walk into her life."

"It's not so surprising. She's a romantic, and she read entirely too much Bronte as a young woman."

Lisbon frowned. "Which Bronte?"

"All of them."

"What do the Bronte sisters have to do with anything?"

"They all rely on contrived coincidences in their novels to advance the central plot of two unlikely lovers. Rosalind must have believed it was fate that brought this man to her to sweep her off her feet."

"Hm," Lisbon said.

Jane regarded her with interest. "Which Bronte novel is your favorite, Lisbon? Wait, don't tell me… you're also a romantic at heart, and you're somewhat of a traditionalist. _Jane Eyre_ is your favorite, isn't it?"

She made a face. Sometimes Jane made her feel downright boring when he was able to predict her tastes so easily. "Yes, all right, fine. I liked _Jane Eyre_, all right? _Wuthering Heights_ was too depressing."

"What about the _Tenant of Wildfell Hall_? Early feminist work, featuring a heroine who leaves her alcoholic, emotionally abusive husband? That was a bold and brave move at that time in history."

"But she goes back to him in the end," Lisbon objected.

"Only to take care of him when he's dying," Jane reminded her. "Which leaves her better off in the end. Then she's free to live her own life."

Lisbon looked down. "Yeah."

Jane thought about the character of the cruel husband and Lisbon taking care of her own abusive father. "I can see how Jane Eyre would be more appealing to you. The plucky heroine who elevates the tortured Mr. Rochester out of his misery through the steady influence of her light and love. Definitely the Bronte of choice for an optimistic nature such as yours, Lisbon."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Let me guess, _Wuthering Heights _is yours? I bet you identify with Heathcliff. The gypsy child who makes good. Leaves the moors as a young man and comes back as a gentleman, showing up all his rivals."

It was true. He did like _Wuthering Heights_, though not exactly for the reasons she said. He just thought it was an interesting story. Not quite so neat and tidy as the others. "Little good that it does him. He spends the rest of the book lonely and miserable."

Lisbon frowned, and he saw she disliked the comparison. He hastened to add, "Perhaps you're right. Rochester ends up far better off."

"He ends up blind and crippled," Lisbon pointed out.

"Yes, but he regains the woman he loves, so it's worth it. Tell me, do you think he's right, to pursue Jane's love when he knows that to do so will ultimately destroy her?"

Lisbon met his eyes. "She's strong enough not to betray her beliefs for him."

"Right. She knows that leaving him is the smartest thing to do."

"She never stops loving him, though. She never really gives up on him," Lisbon said with a yawn. "She just has to wait until the timing is right, that's all."

"But that's so unfair to her," Jane said. "That she should have to wait all that time, on the off chance that he'll become free some day."

Lisbon shrugged. "What is she supposed to do? You can't choose who you love, or turn it on and off at will."

He watched her, her eyes a darker, smokier green than their usual emerald in the dim light. "You certainly can't," he agreed.

She yawned again. He should really let her get some sleep, after the long day she'd had.

He thought about sleeping in her bed for the past few nights, and contemplated what it would take to trick her, or merely persuade her, to let her stay in the room with her for the night. He could jimmy the air conditioning unit in his own room and come back here complaining that his room was too hot. Or he could play the pathetic card, tell her he'd been plagued by nightmares lately and that he thought it would be better if he slept with someone else in the room. Alternatively, he thought, casting another glance over her bare legs, he could always try the old fashioned method of straightforward seduction.

He could go to her on the pretense of dropping a chaste kiss good-night on her forehead, then pull back and hesitate, staring into her eyes. He could let his gaze fall to her mouth, and then lean in to taste her. She'd probably hesitate, wondering if he'd lost his mind at last, but he would persist. He would gamble everything on that kiss, hoping that it would be enough to convince her of his feelings, and persuade her to let him be close to her.

He stood abruptly. "It's late," he remarked, his heart beating rather faster than he was accustomed to. "I should let you get some rest."

"Yeah, I'm pretty beat," she agreed, moving to get under the covers and settle in for the night. "Good night, Jane."

He didn't look at her. "Good night, Lisbon." He left.

Damn ache. It was really going to get him in trouble one of these days.


	12. Chapter 12

Jane was quiet the next morning at breakfast, Lisbon noticed, surveying him over the top of her coffee cup. He'd barely made a fuss over the lamentable state of the diner's tea selection, and he wasn't even providing a running commentary on his analysis of any of the waitresses or the other customers.

"You okay?" she asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

"I'm fine," he said absently, staring out the window.

She sighed. She hated when he withdrew into himself and refused to talk to her. "Jane," she said softly, hoping to rouse him out of his funk.

He looked back at her. "I'm sorry," he said. He scrubbed his hand over his face. "I guess I'm just distracted this morning."

Her heart sank. "I'm sorry if going through all this again is bringing back bad memories."

"It's not that," he told her.

Lisbon frowned. "What is it, then?"

He hesitated. "I was just thinking about Maya Plaskett," he admitted.

Lisbon blinked. "What about her?"

"I was thinking about what you said to me, when we found her. You said we saved a girl's life."

"We did."

"But she's so unhappy. It's four years later and she's working at that terrible bar, wasting her potential because she's still mired in grief and loneliness."

"What are you saying? That we shouldn't have saved her?" Lisbon said incredulously. "That we should have just left her to Hardy and whatever sick plan he had in mind for her?"

"Of course not. It just seems like it wasn't enough. What good are we doing, really, if that's all we can give? Just life. No return to her carefree past. No restoration of happiness. Is that really the best we can expect to give someone? Just the chance to keep breathing, with no promise of anything more?"

Lisbon sighed. "It's a place to start, Jane. You can't live other people's lives for them. All you can do is give them the opportunity to make their own way."

He looked down. "Yeah, well. Sometimes it just seems like we should be able to do more."

Lisbon watched him brooding about Maya Plaskett and felt a pang in her chest. This was what she loved about Jane. This part of him that so few people ever saw. He liked to make fun of her for what he called her 'rigid view of justice,' but the truth was, she'd always had a better awareness than he did that life was most often presented itself in shades of gray. Jane was the one who saw things in black and white. He believed good people deserved good things to happen to them, and bad people deserved bad things. She felt a rush of affection for him as she watched him sitting there worrying about this young girl he barely knew. She knew he cared more about their work and the people they encountered in the course of it than he ever let on. Despite his worldly air, deep down, there was a part of him that refused to accept the reality that usually there was some mix of the two on both ends. His brand of justice was to take note of when it seemed 'bad' people were putting one over on 'good' people, and making it his business to restore what he perceived to be the rightful order of things. She didn't always agree with the way he went about it, but she knew that his heart really was in the right place, most of the time. She hated seeing him discouraged like this. "Sometimes it just takes time, Jane," she said gently. "Maya's young. She'll bounce back. You'll see."

He sighed. "I hope so."

She smiled at him. "Now, come on. Haven't you got townsfolk to annoy? Surely that will cheer you up."

He brightened. "True. Not only that, Lisbon, but I have a poker game to play."

"More poker?" she said, exasperated. "Don't you think you already won quite enough at the casino last night?"

He shook his head. "You mistake me, Lisbon. I'm not playing for cash today. I have higher stakes in mind."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "And what might those be?"

"The highest stakes there are, my dear," he informed her. "Information."

Xxx

Lisbon took the car this time. Jane offered to help with finishing the paint job, but she told him she could manage it on her own, and dropped him off in the center of town once they reached San Angelo. Then she headed back to Rosalind's house and attacked the bedroom wall with a second coat of paint. When she was finished, she surveyed her handiwork, satisfied with a job well done. She chatted with Rosalind for another hour or so after that, sharing a cup of tea with her in her bright, sunlit kitchen. She renewed her offer of police protection, but Rosalind declined, saying that regardless of Roy's true identity, she didn't believe he would hurt her. They said their good-byes after that, Lisbon promising to pass her farewells on to Jane.

Lisbon checked in with the team and then drove back to San Angelo. She went to the county records office first, and then spent the remainder of the morning and the first part of the afternoon in the public library. She called the team again, knowing that they were already hating the mandatory check-ins, but she was determined to follow through with the idea. She'd rather be an overbearing boss than one who let her people get killed out of complacency.

Surprisingly, Jane had so far proven to be the most diligent about checking in. Though she had no illusions that his melancholy from earlier that morning was forgotten, (more likely it was merely thoroughly disguised), she was heartened to hear a more cheerful note in his voice when she spoke to him. Jane did seem to have an uncanny ability to shift nearly seamlessly between darkness and light at a moment's notice. He called her twice that morning, teasing her over the phone and nearly getting her kicked out of the library despite the fact that he was not within his usual radius of troublemaking influence. She wasn't sure exactly what was prompting this unexpected spirit of cooperation, but she decided to accept it at face value for the time being. No doubt he viewed her insistence on the check-ins highly amusing and had decided to play along for reasons of his own. Whatever the reason, she was grateful. Jane was troublesome enough without worrying that he'd been kidnapped every time he decided to wander off and execute one of his schemes.

She finished her work at the library and glanced at the clock on her phone. She'd just spoken to Jane and he'd indicated that he was in the middle of something and wouldn't be ready to leave for at least another couple hours. Looked like she had time for one more stop before it was time to go back to Sacramento.

Xxx

Jane spent the morning chatting with the San Angelo police department's charming receptionist, an absolutely lovely woman by the name of Marjorie Dobson. Marjorie told Jane he reminded her of her grandson, who was an accountant and model citizen. Jane decided not to take offense at this, since he knew Marjorie meant well. Jane flipped through the stack of files she'd so helpfully provided him, committing the details to memory as he went. She answered his idle questions about Hardy's co-workers artlessly and without restraint. She really was a charming woman. He had to admit maybe Lisbon was on to something with this whole inter-jurisdictional cooperation thing.

By one o clock, he'd learned everything he needed, and politely excused himself from Marjorie's delightful company. He then strolled to the back of the small police station and opened the door to the tiny room in the farthest back corner.

Five men were seated around a cheap folding card table, clearly in the middle of a hand of poker.

"Ah," Jane said, rocking back on his heels with a satisfied smile on his face. "San Angelo's finest hard at work, I see."

"Do you mind?" one of them demanded. He was a dark haired man in his early thirties with a small mole on his left cheek. "We're kind of in the middle of something here."

"Clearly. Our tax dollars at work," Jane said dryly.

One of them had the decency to look somewhat abashed, but the rest of them just looked pissed off. "This is our lunch break, man. We can do whatever the hell we want."

"Certainly, you can," Jane agreed. "And you do. All you servants of justice can do exactly as you please, and what you please happens to be taking a three hour lunch break every Wednesday to play poker. It's okay, though. I'm sure the criminals of San Angelo are accommodating enough to schedule their crimes outside of that time frame, so as not to inconvenience you."

"Get the hell out of here," the dark haired man said aggressively. "Unless you think you can stop us."

"Relax. I'm not here to stop you. What do I care if you play poker in the back room? It's no skin off my nose if you want to thumb your noses at the brass by taking a break in the middle of the workday."

"What do you want, then?"

"I want in, of course," Jane said, smoothing down the front of his vest. "I'd like to play a few hands with you fine gentlemen."

"This is a private game," the ringleader said shortly. "Officers only."

"Well, you have me there," Jane said. "I'm not an officer. I'll tell you what, though. Let's make a bet."

"A bet?" the man said warily. "About what?"

"You're Thomlinson, right?" Jane asked. He nodded to the other men in turn. "And your compatriots here are Jacobs, Patrovski, Michaels, and Baker, if I'm not mistaken. My name is Patrick Jane. I work with the CBI."

The man looked taken aback. "How'd you know our names?"

"By paying attention," Jane said, deciding not to point out that they each had name tags affixed to the front of their uniforms. "I'm very good at paying attention. In fact, I'm so good at paying attention, that I bet you that I can predict the future."

Thomlinson laughed outright. "Yeah, right."

"A skeptic, huh? Then you won't have a problem agreeing to the terms."

"What are the terms?"

"If you win the bet, I give you a hundred dollars and I go away. You never see me again. But if I win the bet, you deal me in for one hand."

"What's the bet then? What kind of prediction are you going to make?"

Jane paused dramatically. "I predict… that in about a minute and a half, Patrovski is going to punch Michaels in the nose."

Thomlinson stared at him, then broke into a grin. "You're on," he said confidently.

"Wonderful," Jane said. "Shall we shake on it?"

"Sure." Thomlinson extended his hand. They shook hands, and when they let go, Thomlinson cackled in a self-satisfied manner that was completely unbecoming to a man. "You sucker. What kind of fool bet was that? Why would Patrovski hit Michaels? Dude's his best friend!"

"Is he?" Jane said. "My mistake. I just assumed that when Patrovski found out Michaels was sleeping with his girlfriend behind his back, his first reaction would be to sock him one to the nose. But I see now that's just foolish supposition on my part."

"What?" Patrovski demanded. "Who says Sarah is sleeping around with Michaels?"

"My dear man," Jane said. "No one had to say it. It's perfectly obvious. Look at his face. Guilt and betrayal are written all over it."

Patrovski turned to Michaels, enraged. "Is this true? You slept with Sarah?"

Michaels leaned away from Patrovski, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "No way, man. I wouldn't do that to you."

"Liar," Jane said cheerfully. "Look at the way his forehead is getting all wrinkly. I bet that's been his tell since he was eight years old, back when you guys first became friends in grade school. You recognize that look, don't you Patrovski? It's the same one he used when he lied to the principal for you to keep you out of trouble when you were kids."

Patrovski flicked his eyes to the wrinkly forehead and swore.

Michaels abandoned all pretence. "It was only a couple of times," he said urgently. "Just when you were out of town visiting your dad and she was lonely."

Patrovski stood up, hauled Michaels to his feet, and punched him square in the nose. Michaels went down without a sound. A moment later, he pulled himself together and got to his feet, clutching his bleeding and possibly broken nose. Shooting resentful looks at both Patrovski and Jane, he headed for the door, muttering under his breath.

"I recommend a bag of ice on the back of your neck," Jane called after him. "It works wonders. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."

Patrovski scowled and massaged his knuckles. The rest of them just stared at Jane.

"Look at that," Jane said smoothly. "You guys seem to have an empty chair at the table. That's fortuitous, isn't it?" He took the seat vacated by Michaels and looked around the table. "Whose deal is it?"

Jacobs picked up the cards wordlessly and started to deal.

Jane checked his cards. Three of a kind. He could work with that.

He bluffed Patrovski into folding almost immediately, though in fact he'd had the better hand. Jacobs was no threat, all he had was a couple of threes. Baker also had three of a kind, but he was conservative with his money and bowed out when the stakes got too steep for him. Thomlinson was overconfident with two pair. Jane made sure to drag out the game as long as possible to get as many of the other man's chips on the table as he could in a single hand. It was frightfully easy.

"Well, guess that's it then," Jane said, pulling the chips towards himself once the game was over. "Good game, guys. I'll just be going, then."

Thomlinson's hand shot out and closed over Jane's wrist. "Not so fast, blondie. Stay for another hand. Give us a chance to win our money back."

Jane smiled inwardly. Didn't the man know those were the words uttered by every mark in the history of the world right before being taken for all they were worth? No one watched classic movies anymore, he thought with regret. If they did, surely they would recognize the lines of a sucker before they came out of their mouths. He widened his eyes and blinked. "Oh, well, uh, sure, I guess. I suppose I could stay for another hand."

An hour later, Jane was up three thousand dollars and then some, and all four of the other men in the room were looking decidedly harried. Patrovski was fidgeting with his collar. Jacobs was drumming his fingers on the top of the table. Baker kept scratching at his goatee and Thomlinson's expression brought to mind the image of gathering thunderclouds before a prairie storm.

"Son of a bitch," Thomlinson swore as he lost yet another hand to Jane.

"Something wrong, Thomlinson?" Jane said placidly. "You seem rather upset."

Thomlinson jabbed a menacing finger in his direction. "You son of a bitch. You played us."

"I don't know what you mean," Jane said, arching his brow. "We're just five men, playing a friendly game of poker."

"A friendly game, my ass. You tricked us into playing this damn game with you."

"Man up, Thomlinson," Jane said. "Nobody likes a sore loser."

"Son of a bitch," Thomlinson repeated.

"Look, I've won fair and square," Jane said, which was true. They were all such lousy poker players that he'd never even considered cheating. Why should he, when taking their money was like taking candy from a baby? "But, hey, I know how it is. You guys are cops, you don't usually bet real money in these games because none of you can afford to lose that much."

"You tricked us into raising the limit," Thomlinson said accusingly.

"That was your suggestion," Jane said calmly. "Not mine. But I'm a reasonable man. I know you guys all have wives, girlfriends to support on the pittance the county pays you. What do you say we change the stakes? I'll forgive what you guys owe me, if you give me something in return."

Thomlinson snorted. "Yeah, right. Like the shirts off our backs, you mean."

"No, thank you," Jane said. "I'm afraid that color of khaki is rather unflattering to my complexion."

"What do you want, then?" Jacobs asked warily.

"Information," Jane told him. "I ask you questions, you answer honestly, and I leave all my winnings on the table. Otherwise, you, Jacobs, still owe me eight hundred dollars, and you, Patrovski, owe me seven hundred plus one John Deere riding mower. Baker here figures he can probably afford to take the loss of four hundred dollars if he absolutely has to, but he might change his mind once his wife tells him baby number two is on the way and he realizes how much medical bills and all that extra baby paraphernalia is going to cost him." Baker shot him an alarmed look, but Jane ignored him. "Thomlinson, of course, is the worst off, largely due to his inexplicable conviction that he was going to take me down in that fifth hand with a pair of jacks," he said, shaking his head. "I believe your total is eleven hundred dollars plus that autographed Pete Rose baseball in your office, isn't it?"

"Son of a bitch," Thomlinson said again.

"Shut up, Thomlinson," Patrovski snapped. He turned to Jane. "What do you want to know?"

Jane sat back in his chair and surveyed the lot of them. "I want to know about Ted Hardy."

Silence reigned.

"We, uh, we didn't know him that well," Patrovski said at last, his voice gruff.

"Liar," Jane said. "The six of you, including poor Michaels, were thick as thieves. You were drinking buddies, watched the game together, played basketball on the weekends. In fact, I'd bet you my new John Deere riding mower that this little mid-week poker tradition you've got going on here was his idea in the first place."

Jacobs stared at him, fascinated. "How'd you know that?"

Jane shrugged. "Hardy was obviously the ringleader of this little gang. His absence has left a hole in the group, or this blowhard Thomlinson wouldn't have assumed leadership now that he's gone. You want to disavow your connections to him now that you know what he was, but at the time, you admired his daring, his self-assurance. Tell me, did any of you suspect what he truly was?"

"No way, man," Patrovski said, shaking his head. "He seemed normal, you know? Just one of the guys."

"Interesting," Jane commented. He looked at Baker, who had been frowning at the abandoned pile of cards in front of him. "You don't agree?"

"What?" Baker said, looking startled. "I never said that."

"Congratulations," Jane told him. "You win the prize for being the best judge of character. Too bad you don't win the prize for actually having the strongest character yourself, or you would have said something when you first noticed his odd behavior. Hardy always gave you the creeps, didn't he? From the time you first met him. But the rest of the guys seemed to like him, so you went along because you didn't want to rock the boat."

Baker looked away. "I guess."

"No," Jane said slowly. "There's more to it. You dressed him down once, didn't you?"

Baker looked embarrassed. "Well, yeah. I caught him taking some surveillance equipment from the evidence room, once. We'd confiscated the equipment from kids who were dealing meth down in the southern part of town, and he was just going to walk out of the office with it in his gym bag. So I asked him what the hell he was doing."

"But he blew you off," Jane said, watching Baker's face. "No. He threatened you. Threatened to do something to your wife. You were a newlywed then, and you were so in love you couldn't see straight. You were scared, and you backed down. Promised never to say anything to the others."

Baker looked down at the table again, stony faced. The others were staring at him, aghast.

"I apologize for saying you didn't have a strong character," Jane told him. "I would have done the same thing, if he'd threatened my wife that way."

"You were right," Baker said shortly. "I should have stood up to him. Reported him. Then that bastard never would have been able to do to any woman what he said he'd do to my wife."

"Okay, so that's Baker's story," Jane said, moving on. "Patrovski, what about you? What did you know about him?"

"Nothing like that," Patrovski said defensively. "I just thought he was a normal guy, I swear."

"I believe you," Jane told him. "How long did you know him?"

Patrovski shrugged. "About ten years. Since he moved here."

Jane looked at the others. "And the rest of you?"

"The same," Jacobs said. "We all met him right when he moved to town."

"You all grew up together, didn't you? Except Baker here. He grew up on a farm just outside town and went to school in the next county over, didn't he?"

None of them asked how he knew this. "Yeah," Jacobs confirmed. "We grew up together."

"And you all met Hardy where? At the local bar?"

"Yes," Jacobs said. "He came into town, cool as can be, buying everybody drinks and flirting with all the local girls. It was only later that Sheriff Cassidy found out he was only nineteen at the time. He was fit to be tied that a member of his own force was buying booze for half the town when he was underage."

"He joined the force right when he got here?"

"Yeah. I think he'd served for a year already in another county and then was transferred."

"Which county?"

Jacobs shook his head to indicate that he didn't know, but Patrovski piped up with "San Joaquin. He used to live in Stockton, I think."

"How did he get the job here?"

Baker said, "I think he had some kind of family connection. An uncle, or something, who pulled some strings."

Jane thought about this, and the unexpected generosity of the nineteen year old Hardy. "Did he seem like he had money? Thomlinson, you've been awfully quiet. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter."

Thomlinson shrugged. "He had more than the rest of us. But he was sheriff, you know? He was on a slightly different pay grade."

Baker shook his head. "Not that much difference."

Patrovski was frowning. "He used to take these trips, sometimes. Up north. He usually had more money when he came back from those. It would last a little while, and then he would be back at the same level as the rest of us, complaining about the lousy pay and swearing he was going to be rich someday."

"Up north? Whereabouts?"

Patrovski shrugged. "I dunno. He had a hunting cabin or something he used to go to every so often."

"In the mountains? Up by Tahoe perhaps?"

"Nah, I think it was closer to Redding," Patrovski said. "Land's cheaper up there."

"Did any of you ever go with him up there? Surely one of you must have gone along for the ride at some point. Baker, you're out, we know you and Hardy didn't get along. Thomlinson, you're out, too, Hardy clearly couldn't stand you, and let's face it, who can blame him? Patrovski, was it you?"

Patrovski shook his head. "Not me. Hunting's not my thing."

"That leaves you or Michaels, doesn't it, Jacobs?" Jane said. "But it was you, wasn't it? You were closer to him than the others, weren't you?"

Jacobs flushed. "Yeah, I guess. He helped me get the job, actually. Thomlinson, Baker, and Patrovski were already on the force. Me and Michaels wanted to join and Ted fixed it with the old man."

"He fixed it with old man Cassidy, did he? Were the two of them close?"

The others exchanged glances. "No, not really."

"So, the old man couldn't stand him, huh?" Jane interpreted. "Yet he gave him the job and Hardy had enough influence to convince him to give two of his friend jobs. Why do you think that was?"

Patrovski shrugged. "Dunno."

Jane looked back at Baker. "But you have a theory, don't you Baker?"

"Well, yeah," Baker said, resigned to being put on the spot again. "Cassidy was a good man. I never could figure out what made him hire a cocky son of a bitch like Hardy in the first place. I figured Hardy must have had something on him. Damned if I know what it was or how he got his hands on it."

"He died about five years after Hardy first came to down, didn't he? What can you tell me about the circumstances of his death?"

Jacobs shrugged. "Not much to tell. An anonymous caller reported a gas leak out at the old canning factory. The old man was the first responder, and when he got there, one of the equipment engines blew and he was killed in the explosion."

"You never found out who called in the anonymous tip?"

Thomlinson shook his head. "No. It was an accident. Not much reason to follow it up."

"Who determined it was an accident?"

"Fire marshal," Patrovski said. "He always gets tapped to make the call on stuff like that."

"Let me guess—the fire marshal was a buddy of Hardy's, too?"

Baker shook his head. "Not like that. They got along, but John Moreno is a good man. He plays it straight. He wouldn't have declared it an accident if it wasn't, even if Hardy asked him to."

Unless he didn't know or if he was being blackmailed too, Jane thought. "Let's go back to the cabin in Redding. Did you go up there with Hardy often, Jacobs?"

"No, I never went." Jacobs said cautiously. "He invited me once, but then he had some kind of falling out with his uncle and he didn't go up there so much after that. He never asked me to go up there with him again after that, anyway."

"When was that?" Jane asked, intrigued.

Jacobs shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe about a year before he died, or a little less."

"Do you have any idea what they argued about?"

Jacobs shook his head. "No. Ted was pretty shaken up about it, though. And I think—" he cut himself off as though he was uncertain how to proceed.

"You think what?" Jane prodded.

Jacobs avoided the gazes of the others. "I think his uncle might have hit him," he said in a low voice. "He came back after they had that argument with a black eye."

"What did he say about it?"

"Nothing. I asked him about it, said something about his uncle. He bit my head off. He said I didn't know what I was talking about so I should shut the hell up. His uncle was a great man and he deserved anything he got if he was fool enough to do something that made him angry."

"What did he tell everyone about the black eye?"

"He told everyone he got it breaking up a bar fight. Laughed it off like it was the funniest thing in the world."

Michaels re-entered then, looking sullen and puffy-eyed from the swelling resulting from the blow to the nose he'd received from Patrovski's ham-like fist. "You done yet?" he asked grumpily. "Old lady Dobson is asking if any of us are planning to do any rounds today."

"Yes, we're just wrapping up," Jane said, before any of the others could say anything. "Far be it for me to prevent you gentlemen from answering the call of duty. Thank you for the game," he said to the group as he stood to leave. As promised, he left his winnings piled on the table. "It was most educational."

The other men looked disgruntled, but relieved to be keeping their money. They gave him terse nods of acknowledgment by way of farewell.

"Incidentally," Jane added, pausing on the threshold on his way out the door. "You shouldn't let your guilt over failing to recognize Hardy as the sociopath he was influence you into letting Thomlinson assume the reins of leadership just because Hardy liked him the least. Thomlinson is a bully and a stooge, and you all know it. You'd be better off looking to Baker for leadership. The rest of you think he's prissy and make fun of him behind his back, but he's smart and fair and a better man than any of the rest of you, so I'd say he's your best bet." He shot them a parting smile as they exchanged bemused looks with one another. "Have a nice afternoon."

Xxx

Jane wandered around town for awhile after leaving the police station, mulling over what he'd learned from the intrepid officers of San Angelo. He'd bet a John Deere riding mower that Hardy's "uncle" was Red John, and while Jane found the story of his argument with Hardy interesting, he couldn't think of any way of finding out what it had been about, if even Hardy's best friend didn't know. The cabin in Redding could be a good lead, though he didn't know why Red John would bother maintaining property in such a remote part of the state.

Jane was chiefly interested in the supposedly accidental death of Hardy's predecessor. He was certain Red John had arranged the accident in question, but this raised more questions than it answered. Why would Red John go to such trouble to kill a back water police officer? Was this one of the ways Red John had used to secure the loyalty of his young disciple? Dangle the promise of an early promotion in front of Hardy in exchange for Hardy's services on demand? There seemed to be more to the relationship than a simple quid pro quo, given Hardy's fervent defense of Red John both to his friend and to Jane himself.

He meandered up and down the streets of San Angelo, lost in thought as he turned the puzzle over in his mind, until the sight of Lisbon's car parked in front of Rusty's Tavern distracted him from his ruminations. Intrigued, he crossed the street and peered into the window for a closer look.

The lighting inside was dim, so it was hard to see, but ultimately Jane succeeded in spotting his quarry. There, sequestered in a corner booth in the back, were Lisbon and Maya. Lisbon had an untouched glass of iced tea in front of her and she was speaking earnestly to Maya. Maya, for her part, was listening attentively. Jane didn't even have to hear them to know Lisbon was speaking in that smooth, reassuring tone of hers that never failed to remind him of an expert handler soothing a wounded animal. He knew firsthand the calming influence of that voice. Her compassion sometimes felt like a tangible thing, the strength of it reaching out and moving over one like a gentle caress.

He watched them for a moment. The ache was returning full force. It always reacted this way when he witnessed Lisbon doing something like this. Trying to reassure him that Maya was going to be all right when he seemed upset about it that morning, and then turning around and taking matters in her own hands. His little compulsive fixer. Quietly taking action to set the situation to rights and assure herself that Maya really would be all right, if she had anything to say about it. Hell, who was he kidding? It was things like this that had caused the emergence of the ache in the first place.

Lisbon looked up then, catching his eye through the window. She smiled at him, and Maya, following her gaze, looked up and smiled at him, too. This caused the ache to intensify. He ignored it and smiled back, making a show of waving through the glass.

He went inside and joined them. "Afternoon, ladies," he greeted them, sliding into the booth next to Lisbon and helping himself to her iced tea.

"Hi, Mr. Jane," Maya said shyly as Lisbon rolled her eyes and wrested her iced tea away from him, pointedly taking a sip as he settled himself comfortably next to her. She didn't move away, though, when he shifted subtly so their knees were touching.

"Hello, Maya," he said, giving Maya what Lisbon called his cougar bait smile. When he'd asked her to explain what she meant by that, she told him that little old ladies tended to get a disturbing gleam in their eyes when he smiled at them like that. He didn't know what she was talking about. He'd always found that smile to be just as effective on young women as older ones. Lisbon was really the only one who seemed to be immune to it. That was okay, though. He had other smiles reserved just for her to which she had not yet developed a reliable resistance. "You're looking lovely today," he told Maya.

It was true. She hadn't gone so heavy on the eye makeup that day, and she'd exchanged the dark lipstick for a softer shade more suitable for her complexion.

She blushed. "Thanks."

He stole another sip of Lisbon's iced tea. "So what have you two been chatting about back here?"

"Oh, this and that," Lisbon said evasively.

"Agent Lisbon was just telling me about a friend of hers who owns an art gallery in San Francisco," Maya informed him.

"Was she?" Jane said with interest.

"Maya is interested in photography," Lisbon told him. "Adam got his start taking publicity photos for the San Francisco opera house after we finished school at Berkeley together."

"Adam, huh?" Jane said with a wicked grin. "Old boyfriend?"

She scowled at him. "Just a friend."

"But he wanted more, didn't he?"

"Not at all," Lisbon said primly. "He was madly in love with my friend Claire, and I was dating his friend Mauricio at the time."

Jane pounced on this gem. "Ooh, Mauricio, eh? Let me guess—he was a sculptor, right? No, a painter. I always knew you went for arty types in college, Lisbon."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Everybody goes for arty types in college."

"So how long did Mauricio last before you broke up with him?" Jane inquired.

"Three months," Lisbon admitted.

Jane nodded. "Because he was daydreaming his life away and you're too much of a realist to have much patience for that kind of thing."

"We wanted different things, that's all," Lisbon said carefully.

Maya was watching this exchange with interest. Lisbon, noticing this, hastily steered the conversation back to the matter at hand. "Anyway, I was telling Maya about the arts program at Cal and how it's a good way for a young artist to make some good contacts."

"Meh," Jane said, eyes twinkling. "You can't learn about art in some lecture hall. I say you skip the whole college thing and go to Italy for a year."

Lisbon glared at him. "Just because you didn't go to college doesn't mean it isn't a valuable experience for the rest of us. Most people find it helpful when looking for a job, for example. Besides," she added, turning back to Maya. "Berkeley has a study abroad program, so you could always do both."

"I don't know," Maya said. "I'm not sure my parents would be crazy about me going so far away for that long." But she looked interested despite herself.

"Trust me, Maya," Jane said, gesturing expansively with Lisbon's glass of iced tea. "The first time you walk down the streets of Florence at sunset, you will not regret defying your control freak father's wishes on this point."

"I'll think about it," Maya promised.

"Let me know if you want me to put you in touch with my friend," Lisbon told her. "I'm sure he'd be happy to answer any questions you might have."

"I will," Maya said. She stood up. "Guess I'd better get back to work now," she said regretfully.

"Us, too," Lisbon agreed, prodding Jane to let her out of the booth. "Time for us to head back to Sacramento."

"It was good to see you, Maya," Jane told her as he and Lisbon stood to leave. "Take care of yourself."

"You, too, Mr. Jane," she replied. "And you, Agent Lisbon."

Lisbon pressed her card into Maya's hand. "Call me if you start thinking seriously about Berkeley," Lisbon told her. "Or if you just need someone to talk to. Whatever."

"Thanks," Maya said.

Jane shook Maya's hand, but Lisbon, despite the fact that she claimed not to be a hugger, offered the younger woman a quick embrace. Maya hugged her back, hanging on a moment after Jane knew Lisbon would have normally pulled away. Lisbon went with it, though, patting her on the back and murmuring something soothing but unintelligible in Maya's ear. Jane had always noticed that for someone who claimed not to like hugging people, Lisbon was surprisingly good at it.

Once the farewells were complete, Maya went back behind the bar, and Lisbon turned to Jane. "You ready?"

He held up one finger. "One moment." He reached over and picked up Lisbon's iced tea from the table, finishing it off in one gulp. Then he followed her out the door.

He waited for her to finish sweeping the car for bugs before addressing her again. Once they were settled in their seats and he'd obeyed her admonition to buckle his seatbelt, he turned to her with a grin. "So, Mauricio, huh?"

"Don't start," she warned.

"Guess I was right about the whole muse thing," Jane reflected aloud.

"Mauricio never painted any nude pictures of me, if that's the information you're after," Lisbon said dryly.

He grinned at her. "But not for lack of trying, right? I bet he talked til he was blue in the face trying to convince you to pose for him."

Her stony silence as she pulled out of her parking spot was all the answer he needed.

His continued efforts at prodding yielded little further on the subject, so eventually he gave up and settled for regaling her with several stories from his time in Italy, which seemed to amuse her.

They lapsed into companionable silence for awhile after that, Lisbon keeping her eyes on the road while Jane stared out the window.

"Lisbon?" he said eventually.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for talking to Maya," he said quietly.

She didn't take her eyes off the road. "You're welcome."


	13. Chapter 13

"So," Lisbon said the next day, leaning against Cho's desk and taking a sip of her coffee as she addressed the team. "What have we got so far?"

The rest of the team exchanged glances. "Not a whole lot," Van Pelt admitted.

"Well, it's early days yet," Lisbon said. "This is a long haul, not a sprint. I don't expect you to have all the answers after only one afternoon. Just tell me what steps you've taken so far. Rigsby, you go first. Have you made any progress on Rebecca Anderson?"

"Not really. The woman's like a friggin' ghost," Rigsby complained. "I talked to everyone in the building who ever said hello to her, and none of them knew a thing about her except that she had a lot of cat pictures by her desk. Everyone said that she was polite, didn't make waves with anyone. She would make small talk if approached, but never volunteered anything personal about herself."

"What about HR?" Lisbon asked. "She had to have gone through a background check to get a job at the CBI. Have you gone through her personnel file?"

"I took a look at it," Rigsby told her. "All the numbers were disconnected."

Lisbon frowned. "Well, they had to have been connected when she applied for the job. See what you can do to figure out who those numbers connected her recruitment officer to when the background check was run."

"Will do, boss."

"Anything else to report?" Lisbon asked him.

He shook his head. "No. Haven't started in on Johnson yet. Spent too much time running around asking about Rebecca yesterday."

"All right. Van Pelt, how about you?"

Van Pelt sighed. "I haven't managed to learn anything about Craig that I didn't already know. He seemed like such a golden boy, you know? He wasn't like Rebecca, lonely and isolated. He had friends, a stable family. I talked to some of his friends, and they'd known him for years. Never suspected a thing. I talked to his supervisor at the FBI, and he said Craig was an exemplary agent. He made his career on a RICO bust, saving the lives of two of his fellow officers at great risk to himself."

Rigsby frowned. "That doesn't sound like O'Laughlin."

"What do you mean?" Van Pelt asked, startled.

Rigsby looked away. "Nothing. Never mind."

"It's not nothing," Jane said. "You're thinking of something specific that made you say that. You witnessed an event that made you think O'Laughlin wasn't quite the golden boy everyone else thought he was, perhaps?"

"No, I didn't," Rigsby protested weakly, but it was no use. Rigsby was an even worse liar than Lisbon.

"Spit it out, Rigsby," Lisbon said. "This could be important."

"Fine," Rigsby said reluctantly. "It was during the Hartley case. Me, Grace, and O'Laughlin went to talk to that creep Melling, and he and his cousin and his crazy mom drew guns on us. Grace's gun jammed as one of them creeps was about to come up behind her."

"I remember," Van Pelt said. "You saved me. You shot the guy before he could get me."

He avoided Van Pelt's eyes. "Yeah."

"It should have been Craig," Van Pelt realized. "He was in a better position. You had to cross into the open to cover me, putting yourself in greater danger. But you did it anyway."

"Of course I did," Rigsby said, lifting his eyes to hers and sounding almost angry. "But O'Laughlin should have stepped up. He was engaged to you. He got to come home to you. How could he face the possibility of never being able to come home to you again and not do everything in his power to make sure that never happened?"

Van Pelt just stared at him. The air between them was charged, and the rest of the team had the distinct impression that the two of them had forgotten that anyone was in the room.

Cho broke the moment. "So how did O'Laughlin convince everybody that he was this great agent if he was such a coward?"

Rigsby looked away from Van Pelt, looking confused at the interruption. "Dunno," he muttered, though Cho's question had really been addressed to Van Pelt. Van Pelt, for her part, was blushing furiously.

Lisbon cleared her throat, clearly wishing she could erase from her mind this new evidence that all non-partnerly feelings between her two agents were not so far in the past as they had been pretending. "What's your next move, Grace?"

Van Pelt had composed herself by this point. "I thought I might go out to Iowa for a couple days, actually," she said hesitantly. "I'd like to talk to Craig's mom, see if she can shed any light on how Craig turned out like he did."

"Good idea," Lisbon said. "You can get cash from Jane for the airfare."

Grace shook her head. "No. I'll put it in as leave and go to see my family. They live in the same county where Craig grew up. It will be easy to drive over and talk to Craig's family while I'm out there, and it'll be less suspicious." She smiled weakly. "My mom's been bugging me to visit anyway. And my sister had another baby a couple months ago, so I can go meet my nephew."

"All right," Lisbon said. "Put it in as leave, but let Jane know if you need help on the airfare. No reason you should have to pay top dollar for a flight at the last minute when we have plenty in the petty cash fund."

"Thanks, boss."

Lisbon nodded curtly and addressed her second in command. "Cho, you're up. What have you got?"

"Gupta bought the gas station he owned about three months before he blew up Dinkler," Cho reported. "Paid for it in cash. I haven't found much of a paper trail for him before that. I took a look at the schematics on the bombs he rigged on Dinkler and you and the details on his surveillance equipment, though, and he's definitely ex-military with explosives and surveillance expertise. I'm betting he was in a special forces unit, probably the Rangers or the Navy SEALs. Right now I'm operating under the assumption Gupta is an alias and that he served in the military under another name. Given his age and the kind of weapons expertise he had, I think I should be able to find out his real name by cross-checking records of military personnel with everything we know about him."

"Think you'll be able to run his prints through the federal database and get a hit that way?" Lisbon asked.

Cho shook his head. "Tried that. Didn't get any hits. I asked Van Pelt to run his picture through facial recognition programs instead. We figure Red John must have hacked the records and swapped out the prints in Gupta's military file so he wouldn't pop up on our radar when we first found out the connection between them. We're still waiting on the results for that, though."

"Good work," Lisbon said approvingly. "Anything else?"

"Not yet. I'm going to go over to the gas station tomorrow, see if I can find anyone who knew him personally. He had one employee who stayed on under the new owners, so hopefully I can get something on him."

"You're on desk duty," Lisbon reminded him. "You're not supposed to be going out in the field yet."

"I'm not going to be chasing anyone down," Cho pointed out. "I'm just going to drive over there and talk to the guy."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Lisbon said with a frown, clearly fretting over any potential risk to the health of her recently injured agent.

"I'll be cleared for active duty next week," Cho told her. "It's only a few days difference."

"Exactly," she said. "We've waited this long, so a few days won't make much of a difference at this point. Put the interview off until next week. It'll hold that long."

Cho regarded her with a look Jane knew meant he knew he would be fine, but he was willing to wait and go along with the formality of getting cleared by the doctors before engaging in field work for Lisbon's sake. "All right," he said. "I'll get started on Deutsch tomorrow instead."

"Great," Lisbon said, looking relieved. She turned to Jane. "Jane, tell them what you found out about Hardy."

Jane filled the team in on his discussions with Maya and the goon squad at the San Angelo police department. He shook his head. "Honestly, Lisbon, they need someone like you go step in and wrangle them into shape. They're like a bunch of ten year old boys who have been left home alone, not sure what to do with themselves." He told them about his theory about Cassidy's death, but to his surprise, Lisbon was more interested in the story of the cabin in Redding.

She frowned. "Redding? Why would Red John buy property up there? It's not exactly a bustling metropolis, and there have never been any murders matching his style of killing reported there."

Jane shrugged. "It's near Mount Shasta. Maybe he's a nature buff."

Lisbon crossed to the bulletin board and picked up two black pins. She put one up in Redding and placed another one next to Emma Plaskett's pin in San Angelo.

"What's that one for?" Jane asked curiously.

"Sparrow's Peak," Lisbon informed him.

Jane frowned. "The property where we found Maya Plaskett?"

"Yes. Remember we came across the address because Van Pelt got a hit on it by searching Cut Iron Properties?"

"Yes. What does that have to do with anything?"

"I was re-reading your statement from when you were talking to Hardy when the two of you first went into the basement there," Lisbon told him. "He told you that it was an old family farm."

"And?"

"He told us when we first went to the Plaskett's that he'd only lived in the area for ten years," she reminded him.

"Right, but he was a lying murderer," Jane said, not seeing where she was going with this.

"I did some digging at the county records office, and it turns out what he said was true. That property belonged to Orville Tanner before he died. After Tanner died, the state was unable to locate his next of kin and the state took possession of the property. They auctioned it off for practically nothing, and then a few years later, Cut Iron Properties approached the new owners with a very generous offer they couldn't refuse. The company paid way more than it was worth."

"Didn't Red John buy it just so he and Hardy would have a place to keep Maya after they kidnapped her?" Cho asked.

"That's what I thought at first, but now I'm not so sure," Lisbon said. "Rosalind said Red John smelled like pine and nails, and Jane figured out he was doing construction in the area."

"So?" Rigsby said.

"That farmhouse had been there for over a hundred years. There were no signs it had been recently renovated, and it was the only building on the property. So what were they doing with all that construction equipment?"

Van Pelt shrugged. "Maybe he bought it for Hardy to get his help and he was doing the construction nearby."

Lisbon shook her head. "From all appearances, Hardy was already devoted to Red John at that point. I don't think he would have needed to buy him an old house to get his help."

"What's your theory, then?" Jane asked, intrigued.

She turned to him. "I think Hardy told Red John about the property, and he bought it for his own reasons."

"Which are what?"

"I pulled some old maps from the library and checked all the construction permits filed for the time period when Red John was in the area with the construction equipment. I couldn't find any major building projects in the area during that time, but a few months beforehand, there were some meeting minutes from a town council meeting where they were debating the pros and cons of a big development project that was being considered. Based on the discussion of the meeting minutes and comparing that to the maps and the construction permits, I think I figured out what Red John was building."

Good Lord, the woman had been spending too much time with him, Jane thought. She was really developing a taste for the dramatic build up. "What is it?" he asked impatiently, wanting to skip to the big reveal.

Lisbon released a breath. "A dam," she said proudly.

The rest of the team stared at her, non-plussed. "A dam?" Rigsby echoed. He sounded a bit disappointed.

Jane had to admit Lisbon's revelation was a bit anti-climactic. A dam? He'd expected a secret military fortress at the very least.

"Why would he be building a dam?" Van Pelt asked skeptically.

Lisbon looked a bit frustrated that the team didn't seem to find this information as significant as she did. "Guys, this is a really big clue," she insisted. "California is the fifth largest supplier of food and agriculture commodities in the world, and half the state is a desert. Water rights and irrigation are critical to California farmers, and dams are one of the primary ways that irrigation is managed throughout the state. We've always assumed Red John has a lot of money—what if this is how he makes it? Water is big business. If he builds dams for a living, and is smart enough to buy up land that would be favorably impacted by the construction of new dams, he could be raking in millions. Plus, if he's in construction, that accounts for his movements throughout the state over the years. He must have a home base, but goes to each of his construction sites while those projects are being worked on. He could use his projects as opportunities to scout for new victims, and then go back to kill them after his main work is done. Or maybe even during the projects."

"This is why you were so interested to learn about the property in Redding," Jane realized. "You think he was doing more construction work up there?"

"Exactly."

"But there's already a dam up there," Van Pelt pointed out. "The Shasta Dam is right above Redding, isn't it?"

Lisbon shrugged. "Maybe he was contracted to work on maintenance and repairs. That's an older dam. I'm sure it must require specialized knowledge and training to manage its upkeep."

"Water rights are a tricky political business," Jane observed. He was beginning to catch some of her excitement over this new clue. "Maybe this is how he's made connections with his more powerful contacts. Greasing the wheels of business with political payoffs and promises. He's charismatic, too. He probably doesn't even need to pay them all off, just weaves his spell over them and then bides his time until he needs a favor."

"It's possible, isn't it?"

"Definitely possible," Jane agreed. "Very impressive work, Lisbon."

Lisbon flashed him a smile. "Thanks."

"I can set up a search," Van Pelt offered. "Check county and state filings for major water projects over the past fifteen years and look at the companies involved in the contracting work. It will take awhile, but we should be able to compare that to the locations of the Red John murders and see if there are any overlaps."

"Okay," Lisbon agreed. "Go ahead and set it up, but I want you to walk me through what you're doing. That way I can do some of the legwork on this one while you go out to Iowa and continue looking into O'Laughlin."

"I can put it off a few days," Van Pelt offered. "Stay here and help with the research."

Lisbon shook her head. "No. This is still a bit of a long shot and I don't want us putting all our eggs in one basket. Your idea to talk to O'Laughlin's family is a good one—I think you should follow up with that. If you show me what to do to keep the search secure, I can handle the research on the construction companies."

"Well, that sounds tedious and boring," Jane said. "So I'm sure you'll be very happy with this self-imposed assignment, Lisbon."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "I take it you will not be volunteering to help with this effort?"

"I'd love to," Jane said breezily and untruthfully, "but I'm afraid I already have another assignment, remember?"

"You have another idea about how to get information about Hardy?" Lisbon asked with interest.

"Not exactly. I think I might have to go back to San Angelo at some point and poke a few hornets' nests, but actually I'm referring to Timothy and Sally Carter."

She smirked. "Ran out of brilliant ideas about Hardy, huh?"

"Not at all," he said smoothly. "I just need to let things on that front percolate for awhile while I pursue other avenues of investigation."

"So you're going after the Carters. What's your first move with them?" she wanted to know.

"Well, they were both religious zealots, weren't they? At least on paper, anyway. My first choice of possible compatriots, therefore, is obvious."

"And who is that?" she prompted him.

"The priest, of course," he told her. "Who else?"


	14. Chapter 14

Jane found the priest in the church garden, clipping roses.

The old man looked up when he saw him and smiled. "Hello, my son," the priest greeted him cheerfully. "Have you come for confession? I'm afraid you've caught me tending more earthly concerns at the moment, but we can make our way to the confessional if that is what your soul desires."

"Ah, no," Jane said. "I'm not here for confession."

"In that case, would you mind making yourself useful and carrying that basket for me?" the priest asked, nodding towards a basket of clippings on the ground beside him. "It goes faster if I don't have to bend so much. At my age, sometimes it seems to take me a quarter of an hour to straighten up if I yield to gravity for even a moment."

"Certainly," Jane said, picking up the basket.

"Now young man," the priest said, placing another clipping in the basket as Jane followed him along the hedge. "What can I do for you? I sense that you are not here on searching for spiritual guidance. Though if you don't mind me saying so, you look as though you could use some."

Jane smiled wryly. "You're probably right about that, but you're also right that that isn't what I came here for."

"Very well. How can I be of service to you?"

"My name is Patrick Jane. I work with the CBI. I'm looking for information on two individuals who used to attend this church, Timothy and Sally Carter."

The old man paused in his pruning. "Patrick Jane, hm? I remember your name from the news. You are the one who shot Timothy, aren't you? You claimed you believed he was the serial killer the police call Red John."

"Yes, that was me," Jane acknowledged. "I supposed I ought to say I'm sorry about that, but since he turned out to be an evil psychopath, I actually don't feel much remorse about the whole thing."

"You believe that if a man has committed a great sin, that gives another man the right to take God's precious gift of life from him?"

Jane shrugged. "Pretty much."

The priest shook his head. "Society would disintegrate if all men thought like you."

"Society agrees with me. California has the death penalty, if you recall."

"More's the pity," the priest acknowledged. "Death is God's to mandate, not man's."

"I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about that," Jane said. "If there was a God, which there isn't, He's not doing a very good job of choosing."

The priest regarded him. "How so?"

"In your version of reality, God allowed my wife and child to be brutally murdered. If He's so great and good, why would He let them die and let the man who killed them stay alive and continue to kill?"

"You are struggling with an age old question. Why does a good and all powerful God permit the existence of evil?"

"Exactly. It doesn't make sense."

"I am a lamb of God, and I follow the Lamb of God," the priest said. "Ours is not to know God's will, but to seek it."

"Yeah, well, maybe that's part of my trouble with the whole God thing," Jane commented. "Maybe I'd be more inclined to believe in Him if He made His will a little easier to fathom if you did seek it."

"There's a remarkable piece of literature you might find helpful with that," the priest said blandly. "You may have heard of it. It's called the Bible. It's available in any bookstore and even most hotels."

"It is indeed a fascinating read," Jane said. "But you have to admit it's a bit impenetrable at times. All those allegories and contradictions. There's some good stuff in there, don't get me wrong. All I'm saying is you'd think if God was so set on people following His will, He'd have made it a little easier for us to figure out what it is."

"Man cannot fathom the greatness of God," the priest told him. "How can we aspire to know His will completely when that is the case? We must strive to know God and follow His plan for us to the best of our ability, but we are imperfect. We will therefore never have a complete understanding of a perfect God until we overcome the limits of mortal life and the secrets of heaven are unlocked to us."

"I don't buy that," Jane said. "Either God has a plan, or humans have free will. You can't have both. It doesn't make sense."

"God grants us the freedom to choose whether or not to follow Him. That is His greatest gift. When a man chooses not to follow God's plan, that is when evil and violence creep into his heart and begin to guide his actions."

"And then what? The plan just adjusts itself to account for all that evil?"

The priest shrugged. "I don't claim to have all the answers about the mechanics of God's plan. All I know is that no matter what, God will take care of us."

"That's a hell of a leap of faith," Jane commented.

The old man pointed his pruning shears in Jane's direction. "You could benefit from a little faith in your life, my boy."

Jane realized the conversation had wandered somewhat far afield from the point. "What can you tell me about the Carters?" he said in an effort to steer the conversation back on course.

The priest gave him a look that said plainly, _Coward_, but he didn't press the issue. "What do you want to know?"

"How long did they attend this church?"

The priest thought for a moment. "Tim was a member here about six years, I'd say."

"What about Sally?"

"Sally belonged to the church since she was a teenager."

"Her family attended this church?"

He shook his head. "No, the rest of her family were not believers. She came to us on her own when she was about fifteen."

"She didn't get along with them?"

"She was having some difficulties at home when she first came to us, yes," the priest said carefully. "There was some trouble with her father and brother, I believe. Her mother died when she was quite a small child, you see, so it was just the three of them."

Jane observed him closely. "You suspected abuse?"

"She never admitted as much to me, but I did suspect something along those lines. I believe there was an investigation at one point, but Sally insisted nothing was wrong, and without her testimony, there wasn't much the authorities could do."

Jane considered this. An environment of incest and abuse could well explain Sally's vulnerability to a powerful figure such as Red John, plus her strange dependency on Timothy Carter, a man with his own twisted sexual games. Participating in his games with that poor young woman might have given her an opportunity to act out her own self-loathing by projecting that feeling towards another.

"Do her father and brother still live around here?"

"No, they moved out of the area not long after Sally married Tim."

Jane sensed there was more to that story. "They didn't approve of the marriage?"

"I think it was more that they didn't want her to leave the nest," the priest said thoughtfully. "The father and brother still lived together at that time, you see."

If the father abused both children, that could have generated a bizarre sense of dependency that could account for the seemingly tight-knit nature of the family, Jane thought.

"How did Tim and Sally meet?"

"They met here, at a church social. Tim saw her across the room, serving lemonade to the guests. He went right up to her and started talking to her. Sally never had a lot of boyfriends like other young women. I think she was flattered by the attention. They were married a couple months later."

"Hm." Timothy Carter had likely been trained by Red John to spot vulnerability in others. He must have sensed Sally's susceptibility to being led by a strong will. "Do you know of anyone else he was close to, besides Sally?"

The priest thought about it for a moment. "No one in particular. He was well-liked by everyone, but I don't recall him ever seeking out anyone in particular, besides Sally."

"What else can you tell me about him?"

"He was a very charming man. Successful in business, a generous neighbor. He often volunteered to help out at church events."

"That was his public face," Jane commented. "What can you tell me about his darker side?"

The priest smiled enigmatically. "Very little."

"You were his priest for six years. He never confessed anything to you about kidnapping and torturing that girl he took from your own congregation?"

"Now, Patrick," the priest chided him. "I know you are not a man of faith, but surely you know that a priest may not break the covenant of secrecy between confessor and confessed."

"But the Carters are dead now," Jane pointed out. "What does it matter at this point if you tell me something they confessed to you?"

"Confession is a holy sacrament. Where is it written in the Word of God that the sacred nature of confession is ended when the confessed sinner goes to meet his Maker?"

"They were in league with Red John. If one of them told you something about him, I need to know what it was."

"I'm sorry. I can't help you."

"You really won't tell me if they said anything to you?" Jane said in disbelief. "Even if the information you have could potentially save the lives of others?"

"Even if my oath to God did not prohibit it, I wouldn't tell you," the priest informed him.

"Why not?"

"I choose to celebrate what is good and great in a man's life rather than condemn him for his mistakes."

"That's very New Age of you," Jane commented. "Are you sure you're Catholic? What happened to guilting your congregants into following the path of the righteous?"

The old man smiled. "I am perhaps less traditional than you assume, young man. I prefer to think that it's very New Testament of me."

Jane watched the priest closely for some signal that would help him read him, to see if any movement or expression would give away what he knew, but the priest just smiled placidly at him, secure that following his conscience would lead him right in the end on this point. At a glance, Jane could tell he wasn't going to get a damn thing off him about the Carters that the old man didn't think he had a right to know. He sighed. "Celebrating the good, huh?"

"Yes. Wouldn't you prefer that people recognize what is good and pure in you rather than focusing on your deepest flaws?"

Jane smiled wryly. "Goodness and purity? I have precious little of that, I'm afraid."

The priest shook his head. "On the contrary, I see a great light around you."

Jane snorted. "Nice try. I know that trick."

"What trick is that?" the priest inquired.

"The bright light? Someone from the trying to communicate with me from beyond the dead? I've played that gambit a thousand times."

The priest shook his head. "This isn't that kind of light."

Jane raised his eyebrows. "What kind of light is it then?"

"Since you have an appreciation for New Age vocabulary, I suppose one could call it 'good energy.' That which is good in you that is trying to make its way out into the world."

"Make its way out?"

"Yes." The priest fixed him with a penetrating look. "I can see you have tremendous gifts, Patrick. Yet you hide the true light within you. You're used to getting your way through smiles and charm, but that is not your true self. You have people you care about in your life, yes?"

"I—of course," Jane said, taken aback.

"But you hold yourself aloof from them, am I right?"

"I suppose," Jane admitted grudgingly.

"You refuse to let them fully into your life, and you don't engage fully in theirs."

Jane thought about how annoyed Lisbon got when she felt he was prying too deeply into her personal life. "I'm not sure that's entirely accurate."

The priest raised his eyebrows. "Isn't it?"

Of course, regarding Lisbon's personal life, Jane knew himself to be capable of being far nosier than he'd ever given her reason to suspect. Come to think of it, she would probably be horrified to discover how thoroughly he would insinuate himself into her life if he permitted himself to indulge in that forbidden luxury.

He knew he didn't support her the way she deserved. Not the way she supported him, wholly and freely. Oh, he would make small gestures now and again, wheedle her into a good humor after she'd had a bad day, but he didn't act on half the ideas he had about ways to please her. Because she would notice if he did. And if she noticed, she might suspect the truth about why he came up with so many ideas about how to tease her, charm her, care for her. He couldn't afford for her to suspect, to know the truth. Not yet. Not while Red John was still out there, lurking in the wings, ready to swoop in and destroy anything Jane cared about.

It was possible the priest had a point.

"I'm better off alone," Jane said. "When people get close to me, bad things happen to them."

The priest tutted impatiently. "Excuses! You're doing a disservice to your friends and to yourself, trying to sustain these relationships with your miserly half-light." He gestured towards the garden around him. "That would be like trying to get these roses to grow by shining a light bulb on them when you have the power to nourish them with genuine sunlight. If you deny them that sunlight and continue to shine that cheap imitation of light on them, soon they will starve."

Jane shook his head. "Trust me, if I tried to feed my friend Rigsby on nothing but sunlight, he wouldn't thank me for it. He'd be happier with a halogen lamp and a bag of Doritos."

The priest pointed his pruning shears at him again, unimpressed by this deflection. "You need to be careful."

"I'm always careful. I have a dangerous job and a habit of pissing people off," Jane told him. "I've learned how to protect myself- I just hide behind my partner until the danger has passed and I'm fine."

"You mistake me. I'm not talking about being careful with your physical being," the priest said, shaking his head. "I'm referring to your spiritual being. Your soul. That is what you must be careful of."

"What does my soul have to do with anything?"

"That light I see... it is at war with darkness. The battle is raging; you must be vigilant to ensure the darkness does not consume you."

Jane smirked. "Thanks for the tip. If I see any thunderclouds forming over my head, I'll be sure to duck under cover."

The priest shook his head. "You must let go of this hatred you have within you. It poisons you."

Jane gave him a cool smile. "I've never been the type to turn the other cheek."

"Perhaps you could learn to do so."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Because your inability to do so is preventing you from getting what you want."

"I want revenge for the murders of my wife and child."

The priest shook his head. "No, you don't."

"Yes, I do," Jane said with certainty.

"Revenge," the priest scoffed. "What is revenge? A fleeting release for a vengeful spirit. Revenge is nothing. You don't want revenge."

"What is it you think I want, then?" Jane asked curiously.

The priest met his eyes. "Peace, Patrick. You want peace."

Peace. What did that even look like? Jane wasn't sure he would recognize peace if it came up to him and bit him. The only thing that came to mind when he thought about what peace meant to him was being able to take a breath without being consumed with fear that someone he cared about might be Red John's next target. Surely that wasn't what the priest meant, though. Jane might not have been an expert on the subject, but he was reasonably certain that the notion of peace entailed more than an absence of chronic dread that one's loved ones might be murdered in their beds. Jane could hardly wrap his head around the idea. Even the former seemed such an unattainable goal that he rarely entertained the idea of it even being possible.

Jane's mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "I'm not sure I'm cut out for peace."

The priest ignored his gloomy pronouncement. "I believe the light will triumph in the end, in your case. You are stronger than you fear. I have faith in you. There is another who does as well."

"What do you mean?"

The priest reached out and his hand fluttered over Jane's shoulder. "There is one who prays for you. I can feel the strength of her prayers around you."

Jane felt a chill. This was a trick he didn't know. He remained silent, trying to puzzle it out. Most people had trouble reading him, but for someone observant enough, he supposed it would be easy enough to guess some of his thoughts based on his facial expressions. But to guess the thoughts and actions of a third party who wasn't even present? Maybe he needed to renew his subscription to Mentalists Monthly and study up on the latest techniques, because he had to admit this move was a little out of his league. Many people were religious—perhaps it was just the laws of statistics that at least one person he was close to would be someone who often prayed. And from there, a fairly good chance that the person who supposedly prayed for him was a woman. Obviously the person who came to his mind was Lisbon. He'd never really thought about it before, but he supposed it made sense that she prayed for him. He examined himself for any signs of resentment about this, but in the end it made him feel oddly cared for. He appreciated the sentiment, even if he didn't happen to believe in the power of prayer as Lisbon did.

Off of Jane's expression, the priest smiled. "Ah, you have some idea of who that is I see." He watched Jane closely. "Someone you care for a great deal, yes?"

Of course, it was possible that Lisbon didn't pray for him, and the priest was just a gifted con man hired by Red John to mess with him. "You're a little spooky," Jane told him. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

The priest smiled. "I'll take that as a confirmation that I'm right."

"Yes."

The priest watched him closely. "This woman in your life. There is something holding you back from being as close to her as you'd like."

"Yes," Jane agreed.

"And what is that?"

"I'm afraid for her life," Jane said simply.

The priest shook his head. "Fear is the devil's instrument."

"Yes, well, it's also the thing that keeps us from wandering willingly into the jaws of the monsters, so I'll keep it close at hand, if it's all the same to you," Jane said.

The priest raised his eyebrows. "Have you ever thought this woman might help you find your path to peace?"

Jane firmly clamped down the thoughts of Lisbon that tried to surface at this suggestion. "The only path available to me is to destroy Red John."

"No. You always have a choice."

"Not if I want the people I care about to stay alive."

"Vengeance is not a path that leads to peace. Remember, 'Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.'"

Jane recognized the quote, but couldn't quite place it. "Is that something Jesus said?"

The priest flashed him a smile. "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."

"Ah. Another wise man."

"Yes." The priest returned to his neglected pruning. "Think about what I said, Patrick. I'd hate to see your light diminished to less than its full potential."

Jane wasn't sure how to respond to this. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. It's been most…illuminating."

The priest clasped Jane's hand in his own papery dry one. "I hope you find what you are looking for, my son."

Jane shook his hand. "Thank you, Father. I appreciate that."

Jane prepared to take his leave, but then hesitated. "Would you like some help with your garden?" Jane asked the old man.

"Certainly," the priest said, completely unruffled by Jane's unexpected offer. "Pride goeth before a fall. I'm not one to turn down assistance from an able-bodied young man."

"You'll have to show me what to do," Jane told him.

"Not a problem," the priest declared. He gave him instructions, and Jane set to work.

Once he had drilled him in the mores of proper rose tending methods, the priest settled back to observe Jane's progress. "Now I have a question for you," the priest informed him.

"What's that?" Jane asked, his eyes intent on his task.

"Will you tell me about your young lady?"

"My young lady?" Jane repeated.

"Yes. The one who will help you find your path to peace."

"What about her?" Jane said cautiously.

"Well, is she pretty?" the priest said, a twinkle in his eyes.

"Very pretty," Jane admitted. He hesitated. "Beautiful, in fact."

The priest nudged him in the ribs with his elbow. "Come now, don't be shy. Tell me all about her," he said. He winked. "You know I won't tell a soul."


	15. Chapter 15

Lisbon spent the afternoon under the eager tutelage of Van Pelt, learning more about network security, dummy IP addresses, and anonymizing software than she'd ever wanted to know.

She explained what she wanted to do, and Van Pelt helped her set up a search to help her filter records that might be useful in her investigation into projects Red John might have worked on, if her theory about the dams was right. After Van Pelt breathlessly reminded her for the twelfth time to call her immediately if one of the alerts she'd set up raised a red flag, the younger agent rushed off to catch her flight to Iowa and Lisbon settled down to work.

She thanked her lucky stars that she had had the foresight to hire Van Pelt so her team would have someone with technical expertise for times like these. Van Pelt's automated search mechanism had narrowed the list down from thousands to a few hundred. The prospect of sifting through all those records was a daunting task, but not unmanageable. Even if it was a long shot, it would be more than worth the effort if it got them even a little bit closer to catching Red John. Unlike Jane, she recognized that sometimes fancy tricks and shortcuts didn't cut it. Sometimes getting things done required a long, hard slog. She didn't mind. There was something oddly satisfying about working through a complex task slowly and methodically until you reached your goal. She had patience to see this sort of thing through, unlike certain consultants she could name. Long shot though it may be, it would be more than worth the effort if it got them closer to catching Red John.

It was just her and Cho in the bullpen after Grace left. Rigsby, still not having any luck with Rebecca Anderson, had left the office early in the afternoon to pursue a lead on Todd Johnson. Jane was off somewhere haranguing a priest for information about the Carters. She resisted the urge to cross herself, thinking of the chaos she had potentially unleashed on an unsuspecting clergyman by permitting Jane to enter a place of worship unsupervised. Cho was running down everything he could on Ron Deutsch from the confines of his desk. He showed every sign of intending to bunker down for the long haul, but Lisbon noticed him shifting in his chair ever so slightly and made him go home, telling him sternly he would be of more use to the team if he let himself heal properly before trying to pull any marathon efforts so recently after being injured.

He tried to get her to leave, too, but she'd gotten into a groove with what she was doing by that point and was reluctant to break her rhythm. He left, and she continued her slow and patient search in the peaceful quiet of her office.

Not for the first time, she questioned her own decision to split the team up for this investigation. It was true that they could pursue more lines of investigation this way, but she had to admit she was accustomed to operating with Jane at her side and she kind of missed him hovering at her elbow when he wasn't orbiting around her causing trouble. Worse, she had underestimated how anxious it would make her, setting the members of her team these dangerous tasks and not having the assurance that they at least had each other at their backs. This feeling was somewhat amplified when it came to Jane. Partially because he had no gun or tactical training, but mostly because he, more than anyone else on the team, seemed to rush headlong into dangerous situations without appearing to give the slightest regard to the consequences of his actions. He was always confident he could use his wits to get him out of trouble if the need arose. She had less faith in Jane's ability to defend himself from a knife or a gun with his wits than he did, so she'd gotten in the habit of keeping a closer eye on him than the rest of the team. Now she was realizing that was a harder habit to break than she'd anticipated. Not being able to reassure herself that she was in shouting distance if he really needed her was driving her crazy. The check ins helped, but even though he was being better about that than she had any right to expect, given his contrary nature, it still wasn't the same as having him with her all the time.

Before he left, Cho had caught her worried frown when she allowed her mind to stray from her task for a moment.

"He'll be all right," Cho had said, without having to ask who, or what, she was thinking of. "He's capable of behaving himself, you know, if he thinks that's the best way of getting what he wants."

Lisbon relaxed infinitesimally. "That's true," she admitted, feeling somewhat cheered by this assessment.

"Besides," Cho went on, "most of the time when he comes up with the really crazy ideas, he just does it to get your attention."

Lisbon froze. "Excuse me?"

"The crazy stuff Jane does," Cho repeated. "He wouldn't bother with half of it if he didn't know you were watching. If he's on his own, he won't take the trouble to come up with such convoluted schemes."

Lisbon smiled weakly. "You're saying if I left Jane alone more often, my load of paperwork would go down?"

"Nah. He'd get bored with the normal cases if he didn't have you around to impress with his brilliance," Cho said without expression. "But since this is for the Red John case, you're probably safe."

Lisbon blinked. "Right."

With this pronouncement, Cho had taken his leave and Lisbon immersed herself in her task once again, eager to distract herself from his unsettling comment.

Jane himself turned up a little before nine, bearing Chinese food and looking even more rumpled than usual. If she hadn't known better, she'd have sworn she saw signs of dirt on his trousers, as though he'd been kneeling on soft earth in his suit.

"Evening, Lisbon," he greeted her cheerfully, sending a dazzling smile her way as he set the food down on her desk.

"Hey, Jane," she said, ignoring the warm glow that flared up inside at the sight of him. The warm glow which was not entirely attributable to a sense of relief that he'd returned from his excursion unharmed, and had more to do with the dazzling smile than she cared to admit to herself. "I didn't know you'd be back here tonight."

"I had a hankering for Chinese, and I figured you'd still be here," he told her.

Smelling the hot food, Lisbon realized she was vaguely hungry. She'd been so absorbed in her work that she'd lost track of time and had forgotten to eat dinner.

Jane watched her inhale the scent of the food. "Did it even occur to you once to take a break and acquire some sustenance for yourself?" he said, exasperated. Off her guilty look, he shook his head. "Honestly, woman, you need a keeper."

"Look who's talking," Lisbon said without venom, reaching for the chopsticks. "You're the one who sleeps in that horrible old attic half the time."

"Yes, but I'm a lost cause. You're supposed to know better."

Lisbon swallowed her first bite of lo mein. "You're not a lost cause."

Jane didn't dignify this comment with a response. "You crack the case while I was gone?" he asked.

"Not yet," Lisbon said around another mouthful of noodles. "How about you? Did you find out anything useful about the Carters?"

"Not really. Sally Carter's father molested both her and her brother when they were children, and I'd bet Rigsby's bottom dollar that the brother started molesting her once they were teenagers, but I could have guessed all that based on the nature of the relationship she had with her husband. In any case, I'm certain neither the father nor the brother know anything about Red John. She wouldn't have shared that secret with them once she left their sphere of influence and entered into Timothy Carter's."

"What about Timothy Carter? Did you find out anything about him?"

"No. He was very careful not to let anyone see his true self. I didn't find out a single thing that might help us find out more about his past."

"I'm sorry you had a wasted trip," Lisbon said sympathetically.

Jane looked surprised by this characterization of his outing. "It wasn't a waste of time."

"It wasn't?"

"Not at all. I had a most stimulating conversation with the priest."

"Oh, God," Lisbon groaned. "What did you do to him?"

"I didn't do anything to him," Jane said, affronted. "We just talked, that's all."

"Seriously, how much damage control am I going to need to do?"

"None," Jane said. "Father O'Flanagan took quite a liking to me."

She shook her head. "I don't believe it."

"I know," Jane agreed. "It sounds made up, doesn't it? His name really is Father O'Flanagan, though. I checked."

"You were at the church the whole afternoon and you didn't insult the priest?"

"No. Just walked around the garden with him." He stole a bite of her noodles. "That reminds me, I have something for you."

"What?"

He produced a beautiful pink-veined rose from she knew not where and presented it to her with a flourish. Seriously, she did not understand how he did stuff like that. The rose was flawless, exquisite. It certainly didn't look like he'd been carrying it around in his pocket or anything, but she could have sworn he hadn't been carrying it when he came in.

Lisbon looked at it, non-plussed. "Is this some kind of clue or something?"

He rolled his eyes. "It's a rose."

"I know it's a rose. Does it have something to do with Red John?"

"It's just a flower, Lisbon. It's not some kind of sinister portent."

Lisbon stared at it. It was half open, in that state of perfect potential where the blossom was full of promise, as though if only you watched it closely enough, it would reveal something amazing as it opened up. "Why are you giving it to me?"

"You need to appreciate nature more," Jane told her.

"I appreciate nature," Lisbon said defensively.

Jane shrugged. "Fine, then. I thought it would brighten up your office."

She blinked. "Oh. Well, thanks." Only Jane would think it was perfectly normal to bring his boss a flower for no reason.

She cast about for something to put it in and finally found a half empty water bottle suitable for the job.

She accepted the proffered rose from Jane, but as she took it from him, a sharp bite of pain pricked her finger as one of its thorns claimed her as its victim.

"Ouch!" She hastily placed the rose in the bottle and examined her wound. A bright drop of blood welled up on the pad of her index finger.

"What's the matter?" Jane asked, sounding alarmed.

"It's nothing," Lisbon told him. "One of the thorns pricked me, that's all."

Jane's gaze fell to the bright droplet on her fingertip, and he went ever so slightly pale. "You're bleeding."

"It's nothing," Lisbon repeated. She stuck the finger in her mouth and sucked it.

"Perhaps you should put something on it," he said, his voice carefully neutral.

She took her finger out of her mouth. Still bleeding, but nothing to get worked up about. "It's fine, Jane."

He looked away. "Doesn't the office have a first aid kit or something?"

She noticed his discomfort. "What's with you?"

He avoided her gaze. "Nothing."

"You're acting weird."

He raised his eyes to the ceiling. "I just find it preferable when blood remains inside the body."

This from the man who would kneel down and sniff a corpse that had been lying gutted in the afternoon sun for four hours. "Since when are you squeamish about a little blood?"

He met her eyes. "Since yours is the blood in question."

"Oh," she said stupidly. She looked away. "Um, I think I have a band-aid in here somewhere," she said, ducking her head and rummaging in her desk drawer, her fingers bumping unevenly over her stapler and her pocket knife as she searched for her quarry.

Jane came around to her side of the desk to help her look, which was completely unnecessary. Really, he was good at finding things, but surely she didn't need his help to locate one simple object in her own desk. His proximity added so greatly to her distracted confusion that it took her twice as long to find the little tin in the back of the second drawer as it normally would have.

"Found it," she announced with some relief when her hand finally closed over the box and she pulled it out.

Jane took the box from her. He took out a band-aid and unwrapped it, then handed it to her. She took it gingerly, feeling strangely reluctant to allow their fingers to brush against each other. She applied the small butterfly bandage to her finger and then held it up for inspection. "See? All better."

Jane took her hand and turned it over so it was lying in his, palm up. He examined it closely, tracing the lines of her palm with his fingertip. Every time he traced a line, tiny electric shocks shot up her arm, sending little jolts to her heart.

Lisbon had no idea what was happening. She couldn't think of a single thing to say, so she sat there dumbly, waiting half in desperation, half in dread for Jane to release her and let the moment pass. But he didn't let go.

"Lisbon, do you pray for me?" he asked unexpectedly.

"What?" Lisbon said, startled. "I—yes," she admitted, a little reluctantly, uncertain whether he would be offended by this. "You know, uh, sometimes." He was still holding on to her hand.

He raised his eyebrows. "Sometimes?"

"Okay, fine, often," she amended. "Do you mind?"

He shook his head slowly. "No. No, I don't mind."

"Really?"

"I think it's nice that you care enough to bother."

"Of course I care," she said softly.

"Well… thanks."

"You're welcome. What made you ask that?" she asked curiously.

"Hm?" he said distractedly. He let go of her hand, and though a moment ago she'd been wishing he would let go for her own peace of mind, now that he had actually done it she felt perversely disappointed. "Oh, just something the priest said."

"What did he say?"

Jane resumed his place in the chair on the other side of the desk. "He said he could feel the strength of your prayers around me."

Lisbon shivered. "How did he know about me?"

He shook his head. "He didn't mention you by name or anything. He just said there was someone in my life who prayed for me."

"But how could he know I pray for you? Do you think he's working for Red John?"

"How would he know that you pray for me if he worked for Red John?" Jane pointed out logically.

"I don't know," Lisbon said, frustrated. "That's the point, isn't it? Red John always seems to know things he ought to have no way of knowing."

Jane picked up his chopsticks and took a bite of mu shu pork. "The priest isn't working for Red John, Lisbon. He's a true believer, like you."

"How do you know?"

"I just know."

"But you can't explain how he could know about me praying for you."

Jane moved onto the crab rangoon. "No."

"Yet you believe he could somehow see evidence of my prayers floating around you, what, like some kind of aura or something?" Lisbon said incredulously.

"I believe he believed it."

Lisbon shook her head. "You really hit it off with this priest, didn't you?"

"He's an interesting man. Maybe you should try out that church sometime. I think you'd like Father O'Flanagan."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Oh? And would you be accompanying me to mass for this occasion?"

He flashed his dazzling smile at her again. "That hardly seems likely, does it?"

She picked up the lo mein again. "That's what I thought."

"I could wait for you in the garden," he continued. "The grounds are very nice."

"The garden, huh? Maybe I need to meet this priest after all. He must be pretty impressive if he can get you to voluntarily consider even being within a stone's throw of a church," she teased him.

"We had a very interesting philosophical discussion."

Lisbon blinked. "You did?"

"Yes. He was damn cagey about the Carters, but get him going on garden metaphors and he'll talk your ear off."

Lisbon shook her head, her imagination unequal to the task of visualizing a conversation between Jane and a holy man that didn't end in complete disaster. "What are you going to do next?"

He surveyed the boxes in front of him. "Finish the crab rangoon."

"No, I mean about the Carters."

"Oh, them. Nothing," he said dismissively.

"What do you mean, nothing?"

"I mean nothing. I'm not going to follow up on them anymore."

Lisbon couldn't believe this. "What about your assignment?"

"I did my assignment," he said, selecting a piece of the crab rangoon from the box. "I'm done now."

"One afternoon with the priest and you're giving up?" Lisbon said incredulously.

"Following up with the Carters is a dead end. Timothy Carter was too careful to leave any evidence of his secret past, so trying to find out where he came from before he showed up in Sacramento is a waste of time."

"You don't know that! You haven't even tried."

"Let me rephrase: Focusing my skills on other avenues of investigation will be a more efficient use of CBI resources than continuing to pursue additional information about the Carters. The most important thing to be learned about Timothy Carter, we already know."

"What's that?"

"Whatever his past was, he wanted a new life, and Red John gave it to him."

"That's the point, Jane. You're supposed to be figuring out how Red John connected with him in the first place."

"And I will be, in a manner of speaking."

Lisbon frowned. "But you just said—"

He cut her off. "The Carters are small potatoes, Lisbon. Wouldn't it be more useful if we knew more about how Red John attracts his followers in general, rather than worrying about these two specific individuals?"

"Of course it would be helpful to know that," Lisbon said, exasperated. "But how the hell are we supposed to find that out without investigating the individuals who have followed him?"

"I have an idea about that."

"Jane, you can't just blow off your assignment because you don't think the Carters are important enough to deserve your attention. That's the point of investigating things—you never know what's going to end up being important until you actually _look_."

He sighed. "Can't you just trust that I know what I'm doing, for once in your life, woman?"

"Well, what do you expect, Jane? You tell me you're blowing off your assignment and you're talking in riddles. All you've told me is that you think the assignment I gave you is a waste of time."

"I didn't say that. I went to talk to the priest, didn't I? I merely said that continuing to pursue the Carters from this point forward would be a waste of time."

"Potato, potahto."

"I told you, we've already learned everything we can about them that will be of any use to us. Carter didn't leave us any clues. We aren't going to be able to track down Timothy Carter's past, therefore, we will not be able to find out how he met Red John. Sally Carter met Red John through her husband, so looking further into her past for connections to Red John is completely pointless."

"You don't know that! Everything you just said is based on guesswork and assumptions."

He raised his eyebrows. "I was under the impression that was what you paid me for."

Lisbon closed her eyes and counted to ten in her head. "Fine. What are you doing to do instead?"

He took a bite of the crab rangoon. "I have an idea."

"What is it?"

"I can't tell you."

She scowled. "I thought you weren't going to do that anymore."

"Do what?"

"Keep things from me."

"I'm not."

"Then tell me what you're planning."

"I will."

"When?"

"When I'm ready."

Lisbon exhaled in frustration. "I'm serious, Jane. I can't have you be so secretive and mysterious like you usually are. If you disappear to follow your own agenda, it isn't an amusing trick you're playing on me, leaving me standing there talking to myself. It's me worrying myself sick because I'm afraid you've been taken by one of Red John's cronies."

"It's not like that, Lisbon. I will tell you what I'm doing as soon as I can."

"If you have an idea, just tell me now!"

He shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. I need to work through it in my mind for awhile first. I have to let the idea…germinate."

"Germinate," Lisbon grumbled. "Sounds like a fancy word for 'I'll tell you the plan whenever I damn well please, and not a moment before.'"

He met her eyes. "I will tell you, Lisbon. I promise." He held out the mu shu pork towards her. "Now, do you want to keep arguing about this, or do you want to finish this delicious meal with me?"

She looked at him, clearly torn between annoyance and the desire to return to the quiet, peaceful interlude they had been sharing a moment before. "Give me the crab rangoon," she said finally.

He surrendered it without a fight.

They finished their meal in silence, and then Jane retired to her couch. He crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. Lisbon watched him for a moment, then looked at the rose on her desk. That was Jane for you. The annoying and the sweet always jumbled up and inextricably intertwined.

She leaned forward and inhaled the sweet, fresh fragrance of its perfect petals.

Then she picked up the file nearest to hand and went back to work.


	16. Chapter 16

Lisbon spent the next week poring over construction permit filings from all over the state, only occasionally stopping to glance at her rose as it expanded into perfect bloom. She did her best to ignore that warm glow that kept threatening to suffuse her insides when she looked over at it, trying to remain focused. The rose had been relocated from the water bottle she'd placed it in to a beautiful cut glass vase which had mysteriously appeared on her desk the day after Jane had visited the Carters' priest. Her office smelled amazing. Jane had been right. Perhaps she did need to appreciate nature more.

She signed off on the paperwork to clear Cho for active duty with mixed feelings. On the one hand, she was pleased that he was recovered; on the other, she worried that clearing him for active duty put him more firmly in the path of danger.

This was irrational, she knew. He wouldn't be in any more danger than the rest of the team, and she couldn't very well confine them all to desk duty for the foreseeable future. Maybe that was the problem. She was secretly worried about all of them, but with Cho she felt even more protective because of his recent injury.

Rigsby still hadn't made much progress on Rebecca Anderson, but he was working doggedly on the Todd Johnson connection. Cho hadn't turned up much in his discussion with Gupta's co-workers, but he was sifting through reams of military records that a friend of his from the Special Forces had helped him get access to.

For the past several days, Jane had been disappearing to Visualize, of all places. He still hadn't told her exactly what he was doing there. When she asked, he replied cheekily that he was engaging in a study of 'Cult Recruitment 101.' He was still good about his check ins, though, calling to chat with her for a few minutes every couple of hours when he was 'between sessions.' He still insisted he would explain everything to her, once he had finalized his theory. Leaving him to his own devices in the company of someone as creepy as Bret Stiles made her distinctly uneasy, but she swallowed her objections and let him pursue his mysterious theory without interfering.

Now, Jane was in his usual place on the worn leather couch, eyes closed, but not asleep. Lisbon had learned to recognize by now when he was actually sleeping and when he was pretending to do so for the benefit of passers by. Right now he had his eyes closed in the way that meant his brain was busy whirring away beneath the surface, turning over a particularly interesting puzzle.

Since Cho was still mired in files of military personnel, he had a perfectly reasonable excuse to be at his desk despite the fact that Lisbon had cleared him for active duty the day before. Rigsby, on the other hand, she suspected of delaying his next interview for the express purpose of lingering in the bullpen to catch the first glimpse of Van Pelt when she returned.

Sure enough, Rigsby spotted Van Pelt getting off the elevator before anyone else had even registered the ring of the elevator chime. "She's here!" he announced eagerly. He'd been tipping back in his chair to secure the best vantage point from which to observe the elevator, and he nearly toppled over in his haste to get up and greet Van Pelt in the hall. "Let me grab those for you," he offered by way of greeting, relieving Van Pelt of her bags.

"Thanks, Wayne," Van Pelt said, giving him a grateful smile. He beamed back.

"Welcome back, Grace," Lisbon said, pleased. She was so ridiculously relieved to see her she surprised herself by giving the younger agent a quick hug. It wasn't like she'd really expected Red John to follow Van Pelt to Iowa or anything, but she had to admit she felt better when her team was all together these days.

Van Pelt returned her hug and smiled at her. "Thanks, boss."

"How was your flight?" Cho asked.

"Not too bad. I got a lot done." Van Pelt had taken a red eye back to Sacramento, but she didn't look a bit tired.

Her eyes held that glittering intensity that Lisbon associated with the manic or drug-addled. In this case it was the former; Van Pelt seemed to have passed that threshold of sleep deprivation Lisbon remembered from college where you could suddenly write that ten page paper you hadn't had a clue how to start for the past three weeks.

"How's your family?" Rigsby asked.

Van Pelt shrugged. "They're good. My mom was driving me crazy by the time I'd been there two days, but it was good to see everyone. And my nephew is gorgeous," she added proudly.

"Did you find anything interesting about O'Laughlin?" Jane asked.

"Yes," Van Pelt said excitedly. "I think so, anyway. If I'm right, it could be the key to how Red John connected up with him."

Lisbon felt a stirring of excitement herself. God, they could really use a break on this one. "What is it?"

"Craig was adopted," Van Pelt announced.

Was that it? Lisbon realized how the rest of the team must have felt when she had announced her little revelation about the dams. Her idea must have sounded as crazy and far-fetched as Van Pelt's did now. She'd been pushing them too hard, she realized. They were all grasping at straws, including her. She was still convinced she was on the right track with her theory about the dams, but she had to admit that despite the progress she'd made, she still didn't have solid evidence to back it up. "Over a hundred thousand children are adopted a year," Lisbon pointed out. "Most of them don't end up setting people on fire and trying to kill their fiancées."

"It's funny, though," Rigsby commented. "Johnson didn't live with his birth parents, either."

Jane raised his head with interest. That had gotten his attention. "Didn't he?"

Rigsby nodded. "Yeah. He was kicked around different foster homes most of his life."

Lisbon shook her head. "Lots of people grow up in the foster care system. That could be a coincidence."

"Let's hear Van Pelt out," Jane said slowly. "I want to know why she thinks the fact that O'Laughlin was adopted is significant."

"It's the only thing that makes sense," Van Pelt said immediately. "I built a timeline for Craig's life, and it's the only thing that stands out. I talked to his friends, his family, and everyone says he was dead normal. He was smart, good-looking, had pretty girlfriends and tons of friends."

"So?" Lisbon asked.

"So if his life was so perfect, what could Red John have to offer him to convince him to join him?" Van Pelt said.

"Fair point," Lisbon admitted.

"I talked to his mom, though, and she told me he was adopted when he was ten," Van Pelt continued. "He had kind of a troubled childhood, and he was pretty messed up when he first came to their family. He used to have these fits of rage. He got into fights at school, destroyed things in the house, that sort of thing. They lived in California when they first adopted him, but he got in so much trouble one time that the school he was attending expelled him. She wouldn't tell me exactly what it was, but it caused some pretty bad blood in the town where they lived, so his dad got a job in his hometown in Iowa, and they moved so Craig could have a fresh start."

"What town was it that they lived in before they moved?" Jane asked curiously.

"Lodi," Van Pelt told him.

Jane frowned, but didn't say anything more.

"So did O'Laughlin do better after they moved to Iowa?" Lisbon asked.

"Not right away," Van Pelt told her. "He was still moody, and still got into trouble a lot. But then when he was fifteen they sent him to this football camp back in California he'd been begging to go to, and his mom said he was like a new person when he came back. All of a sudden he was confident, sweet, considerate. He started doing better in school, made the varsity football team, started getting really popular."

Lisbon shook her head. "I don't see how this has anything to do with Red John. It sounds like the intensive training experience at the camp did him good and it turned him around."

"Here's the thing, though," Van Pelt said. "He never went to that camp."

Lisbon frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It seemed strange to me that his personality seemed to change so much after that one experience, so I called the coach who ran the camp. He said Craig was registered to the camp, but he never showed up. He called the contact information listed on Craig's paperwork when he didn't turn up after the first day. He said Craig's father told him Craig had decided not to attend the camp, but he could keep the money. He remembered because when Craig was drafted into the NFL, he remembered thinking it was a shame that he hadn't ended up attending after all, because he could have used the fact that he made it to the NFL as a way to promote the camp."

"Where was the camp?" Jane asked suddenly.

"Modesto," Van Pelt replied.

Lisbon looked at him. "Why do you want to know that?"

"I'll tell you in a minute," Jane said. "Go on with your story, Van Pelt."

"I talked to Craig's dad about what the coach said, and he had no idea what I was talking about. He said Craig called them every week and told them he was having a great time at camp. He never talked to the coach at all."

"If O'Laughlin wasn't at the camp, where the hell was he?" Cho asked.

"Exactly," Van Pelt said. "A fifteen year old kid disappears for three months and no one can account for his time? And then afterwards he's like a completely different person? That has to be when Red John recruited him."

"It's definitely worth looking into," Lisbon admitted.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Van Pelt said.

"I take it you have a plan," Lisbon commented.

Van Pelt nodded. "I'm going to try to find out what happened to him when he was a kid. I think whatever it was might be connected to this violent streak he had that Red John apparently was able to take advantage of and cultivate in him."

"How are you going to do that?" Cho wanted to know.

"Craig's mom said that Craig came to them from the foster system, so I'm going to talk to the social worker who was in charge of his case. I have an appointment with her this afternoon."

"Where are you meeting her?" Jane asked.

"At the county social services office," Van Pelt told him.

Jane turned to Rigsby. "Where did Todd Johnson grow up?"

Rigsby blinked. "Uh, just outside Tracy, I think. A little town called Vineland."

"You're meeting her at the county social services office that serves Lodi, right?" Jane asked Van Pelt.

"That's right."

"Where are you going with this?" Lisbon asked him curiously.

"Lodi and Vineland are both in San Joaquin County," Jane told her. "And Stockton is the county seat in San Joaquin County."

"I'm aware of that," Lisbon said impatiently. "What's your point?"

"Hardy's friends told me he lived in Stockton before he moved to San Angelo. I figured it was just part of an elaborate backstory for his cover identity, but what if that part of it was true? The best lies contain an element of truth, after all."

"That's a hell of a coincidence," Cho remarked.

Jane was thinking. "Hardy would have been a minor when his father was arrested. It's possible he might have spent some time in the foster system, as well. Maybe that's part of Red John's recruiting ground."

"But Orville Tanner already knew Red John by that point, or he never would have ended up in jail," Lisbon said. "Didn't Hardy meet Red John through his father?"

"Bear with me for a moment," Jane said to her. "Suppose Hardy didn't know anything about Red John until after his father was arrested. What if he got tossed into the system and Red John approached him afterwards as a way of making amends to Orville? Hardy and his father might have bonded over their relationship with him after the fact."

"It's possible," Lisbon conceded.

"If Hardy didn't have any other family besides his dad, he would have been lonely and isolated after his arrest. The perfect prey for Red John when he was looking for recruits."

Lisbon frowned, remembering. "Rosalind was in the foster care system, too. But I don't see how Red John could have caught sight of her that way. She got out of the system when she was only three years old and went to live with her grandmother."

Jane shook his head. "Rosalind wasn't one of his recruits. He always concealed his true self with her. It's possible that her tenure in the foster care system holds some significance, but presently I'm inclined to think Rosalind falls into a separate category than these three young men. I think we should focus on the connection between them, for the time being."

"All three of them would have been pretty emotionally isolated if they grew up in the foster care system," Cho commented. "One of my buddies from the army grew up in the system and he had some pretty awful stories about what it was like. Sometimes where they send you isn't all that much better than what you're getting away from."

"That's true," Lisbon said. "Foster kids often come from environments of abuse, and sometimes the system doesn't do the best job of placing them in safer homes. It would be easy for a man like Red John to take advantage of their vulnerability and turn it to his own purposes."

"Yes," Jane agreed. "And incidentally happens to fall in line with a theory I've been developing."

"The theory you've been refusing to tell me?" Lisbon said, piqued. His evasiveness on the subject to this point still rankled. "That theory?"

Jane flashed a grin at her. "Yes, that theory."

"So are you going to tell us about it now, or what?" Lisbon demanded.

He tapped his lips with his index finger as though to signify he was considering the question seriously. "I believe the time may be ripe to share my theory, yes. Since you asked so nicely, Lisbon."

"Let's have it, then."

"You know what I've never been able to figure out about Red John?" Jane asked philosophically.

"You mean besides how to catch him?" Lisbon said tartly.

Jane ignored this remark. "I've never been able to figure out how he inspires such unwavering loyalty in his followers."

"I thought you believed Red John offers his followers something they want that they can't get for themselves," Lisbon said.

"Yes, but it has to be more than that, doesn't it?"

"Why?" Cho asked.

"Because they stay loyal to him no matter the circumstances, regardless of the cost to themselves. They refuse to betray him even when they've been captured and they have to know giving the police information about him would help them cut a deal."

Lisbon thought about Hardy, laughing in Jane's face in his last breath, and Todd Johnson, taunting him after O'Laughlin had burned him alive. "They're willing to die to protect his secrets."

"Right. That's not the behavior of a rational being with a healthy sense of self-preservation. The question then becomes 'What is he offering them that is worth more to them than their own lives?'"

"Beats me," Cho said. "What do you think it is?"

Jane shrugged. "What are people willing to give up their own lives for?"

"To save the life of another," Lisbon said, thinking of her family and her team.

Jane smiled at her. "That may be true of you and your fine compatriots here, Lisbon, but for the sake of argument, let's assume Red John's minions are not motivated by such heroic instincts. What else would convince someone to die willingly to protect the secrets of someone else?"

"A promise of something better if they did," Van Pelt suggested. "Life after death."

"That's right. Gold star goes to Van Pelt," Jane said, sounding pleased.

Rigsby frowned. "You think Red John is some kind of religious leader?"

"Not exactly. I admit I was leaning in that direction for awhile, but after talking to the Carters' priest, I started to rethink that idea. I think it's more likely that Red John has qualities of a cult leader."

"That's why you've been hanging out at Visualize all week?" Lisbon said incredulously. "Why the hell didn't you just say that before? I thought you'd convinced yourself Bret Stiles was Red John and I was going to have to go over there one of these days and rescue you from being made a sacrificial offering between seminars."

"I told you, I needed to work through the idea in my own mind first."

Lisbon shook her head. "I don't believe you. You refused to tell me what you were doing just because you couldn't stand the idea of admitting you might be wrong if your theory didn't pan out."

"Really, Lisbon, I—"

Cho cut them off. "You think Red John is connected to Visualize?"

Jane shook his head. "Not necessarily. I'm not going to rule out the possibility, of course, but I suspect Red John wouldn't like the idea of tying himself to a large organization like Visualize. He prefers to operate alone. However, I thought it would be worth observing the members of Visualize to gain insight into the cult mentality, to try to learn what attracts people to the fold."

"So what did you find out?"

"Emotional isolation is definitely one part of the appeal of the cult organization. Most people long to feel like they belong to something greater than themselves, and the cult offers that."

"What does this have to do with the Carters?" Lisbon wanted to know.

"Mainstream religious organizations provide many of the same benefits that cults offer. The promise of life after death, that feeling of belonging to something larger than one's self."

"Okay…" Lisbon said, annoyed by the comparison.

"So why would the Carters, who already belonged to a church, be attracted to a separate cult organization?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"Because they are getting something better than what the church offers them."

"What could be better than the promise of heaven?" Van Pelt asked.

"The church promises access to heaven only after a lifetime of slavish devotion to goodness and prayer."

"So?"

"That's an awful lot of work for something that is never guaranteed. Church members have to take the promises of heaven on faith, without ever receiving proof that it truly exists. Cult members, on the other hand, have a low tolerance for uncertainty. And let's face it, who can blame them? Wouldn't it be better if you not only received the promise of a better life after you died, but you knew for a fact that you were going to get it?"

Lisbon sighed. Only Jane would require so much build up to answer one simple question. "What's your point, Jane?"

"I think Red John promises a better life to his followers if they die for him. And I think he has some way to prove to them that what he is promising is real."

"How could he possibly prove that?"

"I have no idea," Jane said. "That's what I still have to figure out."

"So we think we're looking for someone who kills people, builds dams, leads a cult, and targets foster kids as his recruits," Cho summarized.

"That's right," Jane confirmed.

"Busy guy," Cho commented.

"We _think _we're looking for someone with those qualities," Lisbon emphasized. "So far all we have is theories. We still need to find the proof." She looked at Cho. "What about Deutsch and Gupta? Do you think this potential foster care connection could apply to them, too?"

Cho considered this. "Maybe. I won't be able to tell for sure until I can get a clean ID on Gupta, though. Deutsch is a possibility. I haven't found out anything about his childhood yet, but I'm pretty sure Ronald Deutsch was his real identity. He was definitely a loner though, so the cult thing seems like a good fit."

"All right," Lisbon said. "Grace, good work on O'Laughlin. Go ahead and follow up on the foster care angle. Your interview with the social worker is this afternoon?"

Van Pelt nodded.

"Take Rigsby with you," Lisbon said. "Check if there's any kind of connection with Johnson."

"See if you can find anything about Hardy, while you're at it," Jane instructed them. "Although for the purposes of this particular inquiry, I suppose it would be better to check under the name of Dumar Tanner."

"Do you want to go with them?" Lisbon asked him.

He shook his head. "Rigsby and Van Pelt can handle it. I think my skills will be of more use here for the time being."

"Okay, then. Van Pelt and Rigsby will go down to the social services office in Stockton this afternoon and find out everything they can about Craig O'Laughlin, Todd Johnson, and Dumar Tanner. In the meantime, Van Pelt, go home and get some rest. You can pick up Rigsby here once you've had a couple hours of sleep. Rigsby, can you keep yourself entertained until then?"

Rigsby nodded. "Yeah. I found a neighbor of Rebecca Anderson's who's willing to talk to me, so I can go over to his place and do that interview now." He checked his watch. "It might be kind of tight getting back here, though. Van Pelt, why don't I just pick you up at your place when I'm done and we can leave from there?"

Van Pelt shrugged. "Works for me. Can you drop me off on your way, too? I took a cab here from the airport."

"No problem," Rigsby said. "Your place is on the way, anyway." Lisbon knew that Rigsby would have volunteered to drive Van Pelt home even if it meant an extra twenty hours in the car, let alone twenty minutes, but no one challenged his assertion.

Rigsby and Van Pelt left, and Cho turned to Lisbon. "Have you made any more progress with the construction permits?"

"Not as much as I'd hoped," Lisbon sighed. "Every time I think I've found a connection it seems like it remains just out of reach. I'm sure it's there, though. I just need to keep at it a little longer. But I'm taking a bit of a break from it today, to be honest. I think it's one of those times when I need to step back from it for a little while to get a better perspective on it, you know?"

"I'm glad you're taking a break, Lisbon," Jane said. "It's a refreshing change from your usual conviction that you can solve any problem by running yourself into the ground. I suppose it's too much to hope for that you've been shut in your office eating popcorn and reading back issues of Cosmo?"

"Yeah, I thought about doing that," Lisbon said dryly. "But then I thought I'd like to keep my brain cells intact and decided to look more deeply into Orville Tanner, instead."

"What have you found out about him so far?" Cho asked.

"Most of what I know I've found out from his prison records," she told him. "Reports from the security officers indicated that he was quiet, kept to himself most of the time, but he could be violent if someone provoked him. I've been trying to track down the letters his son sent to him, in case they were part of his personal effects when he died, but no luck so far. No idea yet how he first connected up with Red John." She shook her head. "I still can't believe he took the rap for Red John's first murder for him."

"The first we know of, anyway," Cho said.

"You're right, Lisbon," Jane said, thinking of Tanner and his son. "It is strange that Orville Tanner took the blame for it."

"Why is that strange?" Cho asked. "You were just talking about how he could convince his followers to do whatever he wanted with his freaky cult powers."

"It's strange because he didn't stay one hundred percent loyal to him," Jane said. "His behavior was never quite consistent. He pled not guilty when he was accused of the murder. Then once he was convicted, he told anyone who would listen that Red John was the real killer, but he never filed an appeal. His son said Red John was his friend, but he still revealed Red John's identity to Jared Renfrew."

"I was never as convinced of that as you were," Lisbon said. "I still think Jared was playing you, making it seem like he knew more than he did so you'd help him get out of prison."

"If he didn't know anything, why would Red John have bothered to kill him once he got out of jail?"

"I think Red John believed Orville Tanner told Renfrew something. That doesn't mean he actually did."

This was an old argument, and Jane was under no illusion that rehashing it now would get them any closer to settling it than they ever had been.

"Be that as it may," he said smoothly. "The significant thing here is that despite Orville Tanner taking the rap for Red John's misdeeds, it appears he was conflicted in his loyalties, at the very least. What interests me is why Red John didn't just kill him."

"How do you know he didn't?" Cho asked.

Lisbon shook her head. "I was able to get Tanner's medical records from the prison. He died of kidney disease. He suffered from it for years before he died. Jane has a good point. Red John has killed other followers of his for far less. Hell, he's killed some of his followers who never even showed any sign they might betray him, just to prevent the possibility."

"Any theories why Red John never killed him?"

"I think," Jane said slowly, "that Orville Tanner and Red John had a deep personal connection. What the nature of that connection was, I don't know, but I'd be willing to bet something about it made Red John reluctant to kill Tanner."

"I haven't been able to find out much about his early life so far," Lisbon said. "I know he was born at Sparrow's Peak in San Angelo, but I don't think he grew up there. Maybe that's where the connection between him and Red John is—somewhere in those missing years."

Jane frowned. "I did some research of my own at one point on Orville Tanner. At the time I didn't think anything I found was particularly important, but I'm wondering now if something I thought was irrelevant at the time might seem more important given what we know now."

"How's that supposed to help us now?" Cho asked.

Jane shrugged. "It's possible I might have noted something about it in one of my notebooks."

"Thought you had all that stuff locked up in your memory palace," Cho commented.

Jane shook his head. "I only store things in the memory palace that I know are important. It gets too cluttered, otherwise. I use the notebooks to keep records of information when I'm not sure if it will be useful or not. Besides, the act of writing helps me sort out what needs to be added to the memory palace in the first place."

"You think you might have some more information on Tanner in one of your notebooks?" Lisbon asked.

"It's possible. I'd have to go through them to check. There are a lot of them, though. It might take awhile."

"Lisbon and I could help," Cho suggested. "If you don't mind us reading your stuff."

"I don't mind," Jane said. "It's not like I use them as diaries, or anything. They're just full of notes. They might be kind of hard for you to make sense of in some places, though. A lot of times I end up writing them in kind of a stream of consciousness state. I'm afraid they may border on the rambling and incoherent sometimes."

"Do you want me to go up to the attic and get them?" Cho asked.

"How are you going to know how to find them?" Jane asked him with a lopsided grin.

"They're under the third floorboard from the far wall," Cho said.

"That's right," Jane said, looking disconcerted. "How did you figure that out?"

"Boss has sent me up to get you a couple of times when you were up there pacing like a lunatic. The third floorboard creaks more than the others."

"Well played, Cho," Jane said, though he appeared rather disgruntled that his secret hiding place had been so easily discovered. "Nicely deduced. You should think about becoming a detective or something."

"Whatever. Do you want me to go get them, or not?"

Jane gestured his assent. "Go ahead. Looks like I'll have to find another secret hiding place anyway, so I suppose it can't do any harm to let you clear them out from the old one."

Cho left and returned a few minutes later with an armful of leather bound notebooks. He set them down on his desk, dividing them into three roughly even piles.

Lisbon looked at the piles in dismay. "Jeez, Jane, have you been secretly writing a novel about Red John or something? There have to be a dozen of these things."

"No, I'll leave the secret writing of mystery novels to our literary friend here," Jane said, gesturing to Cho. No doubt this was revenge for Cho discovering his hiding place.

Lisbon paused and looked at Cho. "Seriously?"

"No," Cho said. "Can we please focus?"

Lisbon picked up the first notebook in the stack nearest her, feeling curiously reluctant to open it. She didn't care what Jane said, the idea of reading these notebooks felt like a terribly intimate intrusion into his private thoughts. Also, knowing what she did about Jane's feelings on revenge and how much time he devoted to thinking about Red John in general, she found she was not eager to face further evidence of his obsession.

Cho appeared to have no such compunctions. He flipped open the first notebook in the pile nearest him and started reading.

Jane, as usual, seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. "Don't worry, Lisbon, I saved all my particularly murderous ramblings for that notebook over there," he said cheerfully, pointing to one at the bottom of the stack furthest from her.

"What a relief," she said dryly. She gingerly opened the notebook in her hands. She was relieved to find that this particular notebook seemed to contain mostly lists of names and addresses. After reading through them, she realized she recognized many of them as the names of witnesses and suspects they'd interviewed in the course of their investigations over the years. Jeez, he really was suspicious of everyone. Occasionally there were questions scribbled in the margins, or theories written out. She sat down absently at Rigsby's desk, absorbed despite herself. However mundane reading Jane's nearly endless compilations of lists may have seemed, she found that the way in which he organized and prioritized them gave her an unexpected glimpse into the inner workings of his mind. The sections with the longer musings gave her even more insight into his thought processes. Despite what he'd said about having a tendency to ramble, she found that she could follow the threads of his thoughts easily. With few exceptions, she found his writings remarkably clear and well-ordered. His intuitive leaps were easier to follow when he outlined the seemingly disparate steps between them in writing. She also found several doodles and sketches interspersed throughout the pages.

She'd never known that Jane could draw. He was a decent artist, though she didn't know why she should be surprised by this fact. Jane always seemed to be annoyingly good at anything he put his mind to, and she'd always known he knew a lot about art. She paused when she came across a full page sketch of a young girl who she recognized as his daughter, Charlotte. The picture showed the little girl in the rain, standing in a puddle in her bare feet, damp curls hanging down her back, her eyes sparkling with mirth. Her cheeks dimpled as she reached out her arms towards the unseen artist in the clear expectation that he would pick her up and spin her in the rain. Lisbon stared at the drawing for a long time, a lump the size of Texas forming in her throat. God, it was heartbreaking.

Her heart went out to Jane. It was heartbreaking, but at the same time, she was glad to see evidence that he occasionally allowed himself to indulge in what was clearly a happy memory. It was a relief to her to know that he could remember some of the good times with his wife and child without the taint of Red John darkening all his memories. She looked at the little girl's joyful expression and she could easily imagine a younger, carefree Jane going to her, picking her up, and spinning her around in the rain until they both collapsed, dizzy and breathless with laughter, not caring a bit that they were both soaked to the skin. She ached for his loss—the loss of moments like this one, and the promise of more like it. Sometimes she thought she'd give damn near anything to be able to give that back to him.

She stared at the picture a few minutes more, finally forcing herself to turn the page because she knew she was going to start crying if she kept looking at it, and she didn't want Jane and Cho to see.

She flipped through a few more pages and came across a particularly long section in which Jane attempted to deconstruct the "He is mar" clue that Jared Renfrew had left for them. He'd written out about a hundred variations of how the sentence might have ended, but she could tell he'd reached no meaningful conclusions. The sense of his frustration was palpable, and she found herself wanting to reach through the pages back to the time when he'd written them to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder, despite the fact that the man himself was sitting not fifteen feet from her, looking perfectly composed as he leafed through another of his own notebooks.

Then she came across something completely unfamiliar to her. It was a poem, titled simply, 'The Jade Raven.' She read through it twice, but even after reading it a second time, she had no clue how it might relate to the Red John case. She definitely didn't remember it from any of their investigations. Some of the stuff in the notebook was a bit obscure, but usually after a bit of thought, she could figure out how it might have connected to something Jane might have been thinking about at the time when he'd written it. This poem was totally unrecognizable to her. Of course, she was no great poetry lover, but she had gone to college, after all, and she thought if it had been a really famous poem, it would have seemed at least a little familiar to her.

"Hey, Jane," she called over to him. "What's this?"

"What's what?" Jane said, idly turning a page in the notebook he was reading.

"This poem."

"What poem?" Jane said distractedly.

Lisbon looked back at the title. "It's called 'The Jade Raven.'"

Cho looked sharply at Jane. Jane, for his part, grew very still.

"'The Jade Raven,' did you say?" Cho asked her, his eyes still on Jane.

"Yeah. I don't recognize it, do you?"

"I've never heard of it before," Cho said. "But I think I have a pretty good idea who the author is." For some reason, this comment caused Jane to glare at him.

Lisbon frowned. "You do? Is it a William Blake poem? Does it have something to do with that poem 'The Tyger' that Red John quoted to Jane when he held him hostage?"

"Nope, not a Blake poem," Cho said, smirking. "I'm pretty sure this is a lesser known writer. Not too many people are familiar with his work. What kind of poem is it?"

Lisbon looked over it again. "A sonnet, I think. Fourteen lines, ends in a rhyming couplet?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely a sonnet," Cho said. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely for reasons she couldn't fathom. Who knew Cho was such a poetry fan? He leaned back in his chair. "Why don't you read it to us?" he suggested to Lisbon with another sidelong glance at Jane.

Jane jumped up from the couch and hurried over to stand next to her, looking as though he intended to snatch the notebook out of her hand at any moment. "That's not necessary."

Cho raised his eyebrows at him. "Why not? Unless there's some particular reason you don't want Lisbon to read the poem?" he challenged him.

Jane opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"That's what I thought," Cho said, looking satisfied.

Lisbon looked back and forth between them uncertainly. She could tell she was missing something, but she had no idea what it was.

"Go on, boss," Cho said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers together behind his head. "I want to hear how the author handled the challenges of iambic pentameter."

Jane cringed and closed his eyes, but made no objection.

Shrugging, she obliged Cho and read the poem aloud.

"Not bad," Cho commented when she was finished. "The author spends a lot of time talking about the creature's sly wit and knowing eyes for a poem that's supposed to be about a bird, but overall it wasn't as terrible as I was expecting."

"Well, I think it's pretty," Lisbon said. "It's kind of a weird topic, I guess, but it's kind of nice how the writer takes this ordinary bird and makes it sound like something fierce and beautiful."

"Ravens aren't ordinary," Jane said, bristling with indignation. "They're sleek and graceful and highly intelligent." He caught himself, and coughed. "They're very unjustly overlooked."

Cho nodded. "Definitely underrated, as birds go."

Lisbon looked at them as though they were crazy, but neither of them seemed to think they'd said anything the least bit odd. She thought about the poem again. The beauty of the raven stood out. It was a lovely poem, really, but it was kind of sad, too. The author wrote about the raven like it was his dearest friend—more like a treasured companion than a wild animal. Yet despite his obvious admiration for the raven, something was holding him back from being as close to it as he longed to be. There was a hopeful note at the end, though, like maybe someday he would be able to reach out to the raven the way he wanted to. "So what's the deal? Why'd you copy this poem into your notebook?" she asked Jane. "If it's not by William Blake, does it have some other connection to Red John?"

Cho answered before Jane could. "The poem doesn't have anything to do with Red John."

She frowned at him. "How do you know?"

"The same way I know he didn't copy it out," he said, nodding to Jane.

"What do you mean?" Lisbon said, puzzled. "It's right there in his handwriting."

"Yeah, but he didn't copy it from a book or anything."

"Then where did it come from?"

Cho looked unfazed by her obtuseness. "He wrote it."

Lisbon looked at Jane in surprise. "You wrote this?"

Jane looked like he was wishing the ground would open up and swallow him, which was an expression she'd never seen on him before. "Yes. I wrote it."

"It's good," she told him. "I had no idea you ever wrote poetry."

He cleared his throat. "Ah, well, you know. I, uh, dabble, on occasion."

Lisbon looked at Cho. "That doesn't explain how you knew Jane wrote the poem."

"Yes, how _did_ you know?" Jane asked curiously.

Cho rolled his eyes. "'The Jade Raven?' It's kind of an obvious metaphor, don't you think?"

Lisbon frowned. "A metaphor for what? What is the poem about?"

Jane shot Cho a warning glance, but Cho ignored it. "The poem's about you," he informed her.

"About me?" Lisbon said, startled. "What do you mean, it's about me?"

"I mean, it's about you. You're the subject of the poem," Cho said.

She shook her head. "No. It can't be about me."

"Yeah. Except it is," Cho said.

She attempted a smile that didn't quite take. "This is a joke. You guys are playing a joke on me, right?"

"'Fraid not," Cho replied.

"Jane?" she said uncertainly.

Jane met her eyes hopelessly. "He's right, Lisbon," he said, looking nearly as uncomfortable as she felt. "The poem's about you."

Lisbon stared at him. "You wrote a poem about me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

He shrugged helplessly. "What can I say? Even I get tired of my own obsessive thoughts, on occasion. Sometimes in the middle of the night when I can't sleep and can't bear to think any more about my perpetual guilt and continued failure, I turn my thoughts to pleasanter fare."

She swallowed. "And I'm… that?"

He attempted a semblance of his usual light-hearted air. "Certainly. You're an attractive woman, Lisbon, and I spend more time with you than anyone else on the planet. Who else am I going to write poetry about?"

Lisbon could think of a few names that came to mind, but she was too dumbfounded to come up with an intelligible response.

He smiled at her a little ironically. "I told you you were sonnet-worthy."

Lisbon turned so red she was sure she could have powered a fleet of solar-powered cars with the heat coming off her face. "Well, thanks," she said awkwardly. "It's a nice poem."

"You really liked it?" he double-checked.

She looked back at him. "Yeah, Jane. I really liked it."

He seemed pleased by this. "Good."

He went back to his couch, settling in and looking like the picture of composure once again.

Jane and Cho tossed several ideas back and forth about how various tidbits from Jane's notebooks might be relevant to their current investigation over the course of the afternoon. Lisbon listened to them with half an ear, but for her part, she couldn't face looking through any more of Jane's notebooks after the experience of reading the first one, so after a few minutes, she retreated to her office and buried herself in research on the life of Orville Tanner for the rest of the day.

Not before she had committed a certain poem to her own memory palace, however.

Xxx

Jane kept his face smooth and kicked himself inwardly. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten about that damn poem. He'd written it one night when had been feeling particularly depressed about the lack of progress he was making on the Red John case and hadn't been able to sleep. He'd gotten to a point where he could go no further on the theory he'd been working on at the time. He remembered being at that particular pitch of exhaustion where he'd been so desperate to sleep he could have wept. Desperate to think about something else, he'd cast about for something else upon which he could direct his focus. Without consciously choosing to do so, he found his thoughts drifting to Lisbon.

She'd been in a good mood that day. Jane had been distracted with his thoughts on the Red John case and hadn't been very helpful. Although at first she'd been annoyed by his failure to help on the case, the team had solved it in record time without him, and having another example of the virtues of good, solid police work to back her up in her arguments with him on such matters always made her happy. She'd come up to the attic to gloat about their triumph to him. She tried to get him to come downstairs and partake in some closed case pizza, but he'd declined. Taking note of his distraction, her teasing smile had faded and she'd crossed over to where he'd been standing by the window, touching him lightly on the sleeve to get his attention. She'd said his name in that soft way she had. He remembered turning and seeing those eyes full of compassion fixed on him with patience and understanding. And for that moment… he'd felt better.

He'd felt worse again after she left, and had buried himself once more in his Red John research, but later that night, when he was longing for a reprieve, it seemed only natural that his thoughts turned to Lisbon of their own accord. Sweet, strong Lisbon who had no idea the extent to which he relied upon her. Over the years, she'd become a source of comfort to him, a touchstone. So when he needed to step outside himself for a moment, it became instinctive to close his eyes and imagine her green ones before him.

The actual poem had started in one of those moments. He'd been thinking about her eyes and doodled a few lines on the page, trying to put words to the look and depth of them, and then he'd thought that yes, this was a far more pleasant way to pass the time than dwelling endlessly on Red John. It occurred to him that trying his hand at rearranging and expanding the words he'd written to fit the structure of a sonnet would keep his brain more pleasantly occupied than it otherwise might be. So he'd written the poem, and then fallen into a deep sleep from which he hadn't woken until Lisbon herself came up to find out what he was up to halfway through the next morning.

He hadn't really thought about the poem again after that. It had been an outlet, a pleasant distraction, but once he had completed it, he'd moved onto other things and hadn't thought much about it.

At the time, it had never once occurred to him that Lisbon might actually read it one day.

Once Lisbon had shut herself in her office again, Jane dropped his unaffected air and turned to Cho with a glare. "How could you sell me out like that?"

"If you don't want people to bust your chops, you shouldn't write poetry about your boss," Cho said, unrepentant.

"You're supposed to be my wingman," Jane grumbled.

"I am being your wingman," Cho said, turning the page of the notebook he was reading. "Women like it when guys write poetry about them."

"How the hell did you know that poem was about Lisbon, anyway?"

Cho shrugged. "Boss has black hair and green eyes, and you wrote a poem called 'The Jade Raven.' It wasn't exactly a big leap."

"Lots of women have dark hair and green eyes," Jane protested.

"Yeah, but Lisbon's the only one of them you stare at when you think no one's looking."

Jane ignored this. "How'd you know I wrote it?"

"It's kind of a no brainer, Jane. It was in your notebook and you're not the type to copy out someone else's work for fun."

"I still don't see how you knew it was about Lisbon," Jane said sulkily.

Cho rolled his eyes. "You think you're the only one around here capable of being observant?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Who else would it be about? She's the only woman you've even looked at since your wife died."

"That's not true. I went out with Kristina Frye."

"Yeah, on one date. That doesn't count."

"Why not?"

"Because you weren't seriously interested in her."

"I might have been, if she hadn't been kidnapped," Jane said defensively.

Cho shook his head. "No. She was just your test run."

"My test run?"

"Yeah, to see if you were ready to date again."

"I went on a date with her. Therefore, I was ready to date."

"No," Cho said. "You weren't ready then. You are now, but you're afraid Red John will kill Lisbon if you make a move."

Jane was silent. That pretty much summed it up.

Cho shook his head. "You're an idiot. Red John already knows how you feel about her, so you're just making yourself miserable for no reason."

"What makes you so sure he knows?" Jane said, his insides twisting with fear. He'd been convinced for some time that Red John had deduced this critical fact, but he had been able to maintain a small thread of hope that Red John still remained unaware of the nature of his attachment to Lisbon. To have that hope dashed by an outside party was an unexpected blow.

Cho looked at him. "Anyone who's ever seen you look at her would know."

"You're wrong," Jane said weakly.

"Whatever." Cho returned his attention to the notebooks.

Jane thought about what he'd said_. Red John already knows. You're just making yourself miserable for no reason._

No. Cho was wrong. Maybe Red John knew the truth, but so far he'd left Lisbon alone. As long as he knew Jane was still trapped in his wretched half life, perhaps he would be content with feeding on that evidence of Jane's despair. But if Jane committed the offense of actively seeking happiness by pursuing a more than platonic relationship with Lisbon, he was sure that would be the tipping point. Red John would come after her to punish him for his hubris once again.

According to Cho, he'd already been dangerously obvious. He'd have to curb his instincts to let his gaze linger on her. He had to stop allowing himself to be distracted by aches, green eyes, and thoughts of how prettily she blushed when she found out he'd written a poem about her.

He picked up the next notebook. He just needed to focus, that was all. From now on, his interactions with Lisbon had to be all business.

Later, after he and Cho had finished going through the rest of the notebooks, Jane went into Lisbon's office with a slight feeling of trepidation, uncertain as to how well his resolution would hold up when confronted with the woman herself.

She turned tomato red again when she looked up and saw him, but she managed to keep her voice relatively calm in a desperate attempt to maintain her usual cool. "Hey, Jane," she said, her voice only slightly higher than normal. "What's up?"

He held up a slip of paper between two fingers. "I found something in my notebooks that might be useful after all."

Lisbon looked at it warily, as though frightened that the small scrap of paper might contain a haiku dedicated to her. "Yeah?"

He handed her the slip of paper. Lisbon nearly jumped out of her skin when their fingers brushed as he handed it to her, but he pretended not to notice.

Lisbon was so busy avoiding his gaze it took her a moment to process what was written on the piece of paper. "Adelaide Tanner," she read aloud. "Tanner's mother?"

"Sister," he corrected her.

"Orville and Adelaide? Their parents must have been sadists."

"Yes, the names are rather unfortunate," Jane agreed.

"What's her story?"

"I don't know much about her. She was three or four years younger than Orville, I think."

Lisbon frowned at the paper, and Jane idly noted the adorable way her lower lip jutted out. "Do you have any idea where she might be living now?"

Perhaps the resolution was a bit harsh. Surely there was no harm in just _looking._ He'd gotten away with that particular indulgence so far, hadn't he? "Afraid not. I only heard her name mentioned in passing one time. At the time it didn't seem significant so I didn't inquire further."

"Still, it's a good clue," Lisbon said. "She might be able to tell us something useful. I'll see if I can track her down. She raised her eyes to meet his. "Thanks, Jane."

At that moment, he abandoned the resolution as completely impracticable. Hadn't he already proven he was incapable of staying away from her? He'd just have to find some other way to keep her safe.

Resolution summarily discarded, he looked back at her without reservation, drinking in sight of the utterly artless expression on her face as she met his gaze. He was going to need to work on his poetry skills, he decided. He really hadn't done justice to the rich color of her eyes in his first effort. Perhaps his next poem would be called 'The Emerald Sea.'


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Happy birthday to the fabulous Chiisana Minako! Thanks for your awesome beta reading and wonderful words of encouragement.

To everyone else, thank you so, so much for all the kind reviews. I really do appreciate every single one, and I will eventually try to give you the individual thanks you all deserve, but at the moment every spare minute is going to finalizing this monster. Hope to get back to you soon, though. In the meantime, thank you again, and enjoy.

xxxx

Van Pelt called Lisbon and told her she and Rigsby were making progress. The social worker, Clarissa Allen, remembered O'Laughlin, but didn't know any of the other names Rigsby and Van Pelt had mentioned to her. She told them they were welcome to search the files if they wanted to, but they'd have to go to a storage facility in another town, because they didn't keep records that old on site and no one had ever bothered to digitize them. Rigsby and Van Pelt drove down to the storage facility and had found years' worth of files in a state of disorganized chaos.

Despite the circumstances, Van Pelt seemed determined to follow through. She asked Lisbon if it was okay if they stayed down there for a couple of days to see if they could find anything in the massive quantity of files. On the condition that they continued the check ins, Lisbon agreed.

When they returned to the office two days later, Rigsby was staggering under the weight of two boxes worth of files and Van Pelt was buzzing with barely suppressed excitement.

"We found something," Van Pelt announced before Rigsby had even had time to set down his burden.

Lisbon was poring over the map she had pinned to the bulletin board, trying to match up sites of Red John killings with various water projects all over the state while Cho and Jane discussed a theory Cho was working on about Gupta, but they all stopped what they were doing when Rigsby and Van Pelt came in and turned their attention to them.

"Do tell, Grace," Jane said as Rigsby set down the boxes on his desk.

"Craig went to see his social worker at the beginning of the summer when he was supposed to be at that football camp," she informed them.

"Why was that?" Jane asked, perching on the edge of Cho's desk.

"Apparently he was looking for information about his grandfather. He wanted to get in touch with him."

Lisbon frowned, leaning against Rigsby's desk. "If he had a grandfather, why was he placed in foster care?"

"Apparently the grandfather was deemed not to be a suitable guardian. There was some evidence of abuse. It wasn't conclusive, but enough for a judge to determine that Craig shouldn't be left with him."

"Is that where you think he went the rest of that summer? To find his grandfather?"

"Couldn't have been. The grandfather died three years before Craig went to ask about him. The social worker found that out after he came to talk to her. She was looking into whether Craig would be allowed to see him, if they found him. Apparently they might have worked out some kind of supervised visitation situation even if he couldn't go live with his grandfather. But it ended up being a moot point because when she tried to find him, she found out he'd died of lung cancer a few years earlier."

"She told O'Laughlin all this?"

Van Pelt shook her head. "She promised to look into it and set up an appointment for the following week to touch base with him. She did the research and talked to her supervisor about the situation and everything, but he never showed up to the second appointment, so she didn't have a chance to tell him what she'd found out."

"Why do you think he wanted to talk to his grandfather so badly?"

"The social worker seemed to think O'Laughlin and the grandfather had kind of a twisted relationship," Rigsby said.

"But she was still helping him reconnect with him?" Lisbon said. "That seems suspicious."

Rigsby shook his head. "I don't think so. She figured he was having some kind of trouble or he wouldn't have come in to talk to her. I think she believed talking to the grandfather could help O'Laughlin get some kind of closure on everything that happened with his family. His real family, I mean. The one he had before he was adopted."

"What happened with his family?" Jane asked.

"The social worker told us that O'Laughlin was in foster care because his whole family died in a house fire. Both of his parents and his little sister. The police suspected O'Laughlin had something to do with it, but they didn't have any evidence."

"O'Laughlin set his own family on fire?" Lisbon said, horrified.

"Guess he developed his taste for arson early in life," Jane commented.

"It was definitely arson?" Cho asked.

"Yes," Rigsby affirmed. "I was able to reach out to the fire marshal while we were down there and he let me take a look at the file. They weren't able to prove it wasn't an accidental house fire, but all the signs of arson are there if you know what to look for. No way to tell it was O'Laughlin for sure, of course, but based on the way it was set, it would have had to have been someone who was familiar with the house and had access to the inside. If it was him, he was already a pretty sophisticated arsonist already by ten."

"So lighting someone up in a jail cell would have been no great effort for him," Jane concluded.

Van Pelt shook her head. "I still can't get my head around it. How could he go from being this disturbed kid to suddenly seeming like he had it all together in such a short space of time?"

"If your theory's right, that means Red John probably spent that whole summer training him how to charm people into giving him his way," Jane said. "He would have taught him to hide his true self from the outside world. You falling in love with him was not an unlucky coincidence—he was assigned to make you fall in love with him so Red John would have an inside track on our investigations. You were targeted specifically—he would have made it his business to find out what kind of man you would be likely to fall for. Red John did everything in his power to make sure he had the wherewithal to do so."

Van Pelt did not look comforted by this. "There's more."

"Go on."

"Dumar Tanner, Ron Deutsch, and Todd Johnson all went through foster care in that county," Van Pelt said. "They were all placed in homes by the same social services office."

Lisbon's blood went cold. "You're sure?"

"Absolutely sure."

"The social worker," Cho said. "She must have been the one to place them."

Van Pelt shook her head. "No. I checked. They all had different case workers. It's all there in the files."

"There has to be a connection we're missing," Jane said. "Some way that Red John learned about all four of those boys."

"Maybe Red John is a cop," Lisbon suggested. "If he works for the county sheriff's office, he might have been the one to respond to the house calls that ended up bringing each of them into the system in the first place."

"That's possible. Or he has some connection to the social services office directly."

"He might have worked there himself," Rigsby said. "Maybe he just saw them come into the office and picked them out that way."

"There are a thousand ways he could have found out about them," Jane said. "The important thing is that one key person somehow linked them together. There must be at least one person who came across all three of those cases at one point or another, and that person either is Red John, or works for him."

"I can check into the police angle," Rigsby offered. "See if it's possible the same officer answered calls to all their houses."

"I'll look into employees at the social services agency," Van Pelt said. "Try to find out if there was anyone else at the agency who might have been involved in all three cases somehow. Who knows, it could a file clerk or somebody like that."

"I have an ex who works for social services here in Sacramento," Cho said. "I can ask her if she has any ideas about how three cases with different social workers might be connected."

"I'll go with you," Van Pelt said. "It might give me some ideas about where to start within the Stockton office."

The three of them left Jane and Lisbon standing in the bullpen, the boxes of files on Rigsby's desk between them.

Lisbon looked at Jane. She couldn't believe it. They'd done it. They'd finally found a real, solid lead. True, they were still a long way from having a positive ID on Red John, but they had a indisputable connection between four of Red John's disciples. For once, they were half a step ahead of him, instead of three steps behind. It didn't feel real. They'd been chasing him so long, part of her believed in her heart of hearts they were never going to catch him. This was the first real progress they'd made in what felt like forever. On the one hand, she felt euphoric with the thrill of discovery. On the other hand, to finally be closing in on the monster was almost terrifying—there was little hope that the beast wouldn't lash out before it was backed into a corner. This discovery had suddenly and dramatically raised the stakes for all of them. She struggled to express some of this to the man next to her, but all she managed was, "Jane."

As usual, he seemed to understand what she was thinking without her having to put it into words. "I know," he said, reaching out and squeezing her hand gently. He smiled ruefully. "Chalk one up for honest police work."

She smiled despite herself. "Damn straight." Then her smile faded. "It's almost certain he's going to find out now, you know."

"Let's not borrow trouble," Jane said, withdrawing his hand from hers. "It hasn't happened yet."

Lisbon was not mollified. "If he has someone on the inside and they find out the CBI is poking around before we figure out who it is, they'll tip him off."

"I agree with you," Jane said placatingly. "But not if we catch them first."

Lisbon shook her head. "You don't really believe that's how it's going to happen, do you?"

"No," he said reluctantly. "Given our luck with this case, it would be nothing short of a miracle if it did."

"You don't believe in miracles," she pointed out.

"If we finally manage to catch him and all get out of the final confrontation unscathed, I might reconsider my position on that point."

"Oh, God," she said, twisting her hands together in sudden panic. "I forgot to remind the team about the check ins."

"They know, Lisbon," he said gently. "They won't forget. You've been quite effective with your nagging."

"They're all in even more danger than before," she fretted.

"They know the risks," he reminded her. "Just as you do."

Lisbon passed a hand over her eyes. "I'll never forgive myself if something happens to one of them because of this."

"How do you think I feel?"

"Jane…"

He shook his head. "It's no use trying to assure me that it wouldn't be my fault if something happened to one of you. It would have about as much effect as any such assurance on my part would have on you in this particular situation, I imagine."

Lisbon couldn't think of anything to say to that. Jane picked up the lid from the top box and started leafing absently through the first file. Lisbon's thoughts, however, had turned in a different direction.

"Guess all this blows my theory about the dams out of the water," she said ruefully.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Jane said, his nose still buried in the file. "I wouldn't give up on it just yet."

"You wouldn't?"

He shrugged. "I don't see Red John working in a social services office, living the life of an office drudge for years, just to recruit vulnerable young people to his cause, do you? I think it's much more likely that someone connected to the organization has been helping him, whether it's a cop as you suggested or someone who works directly for the social services office."

"But if he works in construction, how would he have connections with a social services office?"

"Who knows? Maybe he has some personal connection with someone there. All I'm saying is it's too early to dismiss any viable theory out of hand."

She glanced at him. "Does this mean you're going to follow up with the cult thing?"

"Yes. I think I could still learn a thing or two from Bret Stiles."

Lisbon shuddered. "Be careful. I don't care if you don't think he's Red John, Stiles gives me the creeps."

"I'll promise to be careful if you will," he said.

"I'm always careful," Lisbon said defensively.

He rolled his eyes. "Except when you take down a suspect twice your size or decide to defuse a bomb to save a little girl's life."

"That happened one time," Lisbon protested.

"That was one time too many, to my taste. In any case, you take my point."

"Fine, I promise I'll be careful." Lisbon looked at him expectantly. "Now you."

"I will, too," he promised in his turn.

"God, I can't wait for a time when we can go through a day without being in a state of constant worry," Lisbon sighed.

"Yes, that would be nice, wouldn't it?" Jane agreed.

"Maybe our luck will hold and we'll find a way to end this soon," she said grimly.

He certainly hoped so. For all their sakes.


	18. Chapter 18

Lisbon took Jane's advice. She buried herself in her research on water projects for the next week. The rest of the team was in and out of the office as they all followed their own leads. After another week at Visualize, Jane had had enough of Bret Stiles and had turned his mind to other things.

He spent a morning on his couch, thinking. In the afternoon, he wandered into Lisbon's office.

She looked up when she heard him. "Hey."

She looked frustrated, he observed. Despite his encouragement, he could tell she was beginning to despair of ever finding evidence to back up her theory on the water projects. She was close to giving up on the whole thing. "Hey," he returned.

She raised her eyebrows at him. "What's up?"

"I've been thinking," he began.

She hid a smile. "That's never a good sign."

He ignored her. "We've been trying to consider every angle on the Red John case, right?"

"Yes," she said warily. "What's your point?"

"Well, we've missed something."

"Stop right there," she ordered him.

He paused. "Why?"

"Because if there's another set of questions out there about Red John that we don't have any answers to, I'm not sure I want to know about them," she said. "My brain has already reached its saturation point with what we already know we don't know."

"Your grammar grows confused."

"You know what I mean. I don't know if I can take any more layers to this mystery."

"Fine. Have it your way. Forget I said a thing."

She sighed. "Just tell me."

He didn't wait for further encouragement. "You know what question we haven't been asking?"

"What?"

"How Hightower figures into all this."

"Hightower?" Lisbon said, confused. "What does she have to do with anything?"

"Aren't you curious to know what her relationship is to Red John?"

Lisbon blanched. "You think Hightower is one of Red John's people?"

"No," he assured her.

"Oh, thank God," she said, her color returning. "I mean, I suppose she could be—"

"—But you liked her and you'd prefer not to lose faith in every person you've ever trusted outside the team," Jane finished.

"Yeah," Lisbon admitted. "What made you start thinking about her?"

"She's another person who doesn't quite fit the pattern."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm curious why Red John went to so much trouble to frame her for Johnson's murder."

"He was trying to pin it on her to divert suspicion from O'Laughlin," Lisbon pointed out. "That's not so strange."

"If that was the case, why would he spend so much effort to find her after she escaped?"

Lisbon shrugged. "He doesn't like to lose."

Jane shook his head. "But her escape made her seem all the more guilty. It all he wanted was for her to take the blame for Johnson's murder, he should have been content to let her run off and stay hidden in the shadows, propping up her image as a guilty murderess."

"He didn't do that, though," Lisbon reflected. "He came up with an elaborate plot for Gupta to track her down through records at the Cash in Motion. And when that didn't work out, he sent O'Laughlin after her at that cabin."

"Exactly. Why did he bother? Why not just let her go?"

"Maybe he thought she might come back later and cause trouble for him," Lisbon suggested.

Jane shook his head. "Unlikely. Pretty much everyone at the CBI except you and your team was convinced she was guilty. And coming back into the open would have left her pretty vulnerable. He would have known she wouldn't have wanted to risk that. She would have stayed hidden, if only to keep her kids safe."

"What's your theory, then?"

"Maybe she had something he wanted."

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure. Information, perhaps."

"What kind of information?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I suppose it's one more thing to add to the list of things we haven't figured out about him."

She sighed. "Why does it seem like every time we think we've learned a little more about him, it only seems to expose more elements that we know nothing about?"

"Like the many-headed snake," Jane agreed. "Every time you cut off one of the Hydra's heads, it grows back two more."

"What a comforting analogy," Lisbon said dryly.

He smiled. "Forgive me my comforting analogy."

"I've forgiven you for far worse," she said, giving him a small smile of her own. "I guess I can let this go, too."

"You're too good to me, my dear," he said.

Her smile faded. "The many-headed snake," she repeated wonderingly. "Jane, that's it."

He raised his eyebrows. "What's it?"

"This thing with the water projects," she said. "I've been driving myself crazy trying to find a single company that has connections with water projects near all of Red John's original kills. But what if it isn't one single company? What if it's a group of companies?"

"You're thinking that Red John has been running a business sheltered by several shell corporations?" Jane asked.

She nodded. "Look, Cut Iron Properties is the name of the business associated with the project that originally got us thinking about this connection, right?"

"Yes."

"We already knew Cut Iron Properties had characteristics of a shell corporation," Lisbon said. "It had a P.O. Box as its mailing address and it isn't registered as a fictitious business name with the state. I haven't been able to find any evidence of tax records for a company under that name, either."

"Go on."

"I've been operating under the assumption that Cut Iron Properties was a lone dummy corporation concealing a single legitimate construction business. But now I'm starting to think it would make more sense if he had several companies that he uses as a front."

Jane considered this. "That would imply that he's not simply a worker employed by someone else, using assignments as a cover for his exploits. He's likely very high up in the organization. Possibly the owner."

"That would fit into what we know about him, wouldn't it? He always wants to be in control. If he owns the business, or businesses, he wouldn't have anyone to answer to. He would be the one calling the shots."

"The layers within layers aspect of creating multiple shell corporations would appeal to his need for secrecy," Jane reflected.

"Exactly. It would give him added protection if anyone thought to connect his business activities to his killings."

"I think you may be on to something, here," Jane told her.

Lisbon rummaged through her stacks of files and pulled out three folders. "Look. Here are the three companies that I've been focusing on. I thought one of them was the key, but none of them matched up entirely with what we know about Red John's activities. When you look at them all together, though, the timelines for the projects matches pretty closely to his kills, especially for his early murders."

Jane looked at the names marked on the three files. "Steele Industries, The Eisen Group, and Free Cloud Corporation."

"Right. I've only been able to link Cut Iron Properties to one other project in the whole state, but these three have had each had several major projects over the past fifteen years that overlap with the sites of his kills."

"Huh," Jane said, still staring at the files, bemused.

She looked up. He had a strange look on his face. "What is it?" she asked him. "Does one of these names mean something to you?"

He shook his head. "No. None of them stand out when you look at them one at a time. But when you put them all together, there's definitely a pattern."

Lisbon looked at the names again. "What pattern?"

"The names. Steele Industries. The Eisen Group. Free Cloud Corporation," Jane repeated back to her.

"What about them?"

"Eisen means iron in German," he told her.

She looked at him sharply. "As in 'Cut Iron?'"

"Yes. And steel is an iron alloy."

"What about Free Cloud Corporation?"

He took a pencil from her desk and wrote out 'Free Cloud' on a post it note. Then he rearranged the letters beneath them.

"Clou de fer," she read aloud. "French?"

He nodded. "It means 'Iron Nail.'"

"Oh, my God," she breathed. "Jane, this is it. We know where he works."

"Not quite," he reminded her. "We still don't know which is the parent corporation that serves as the basis of operations for these companies, or who runs it."

"Meh," she said dismissively, and he had to smile at her adoption of one of his pet phrases. "That shouldn't be so hard to find out, now that we know for sure there's a connection."

"Two breakthroughs in two weeks," Jane said musingly. "Looks like the team is on a roll."

"We're closing in on him," she said with satisfaction.

"Just don't forget what happens when you try to kill the many-headed snake," Jane reminded her. "It can come back to bite you from a direction you don't expect."

"I'm not going to kill this particular snake," she told him. "I'm going to arrest him and make sure he rots in jail."

Jane remained silent, not wanting to diminish the light in Lisbon's eyes by opening up an old argument. She hated Jane's fixation on revenge, but he couldn't find it in himself to explain to her that regardless of his personal views on the issue, he really didn't think they were going to have a choice in the matter in the end. Back when Cho had been in the hospital and Lisbon had first expressed her newfound determination to catch Red John, he had had a moment of fear that Lisbon had developed a dangerous obsession with revenge to rival his own, but now he realized Lisbon had never expressed any desire for revenge. Her entire focus was on preventing Red John from harming anyone else. Cho's injury had been a catalyst which had sparked her to new heights of determination to achieve this end, but she had never wavered in her intended approach.

To Jane, it seemed laughably naïve to assume that if they caught him, Red John would go quietly. Jane had no doubt Red John would ruthlessly slaughter any enemies in his path rather than surrender his freedom. For his part, Jane thought grimly, he intended to take down not only Red John, but any of his people that threatened him or the people he cared about. If he wanted to win the day, he would have to be exactly as cold and ruthless as Lisbon did not want him to become. He could imagine her disappointment and sense of betrayal so clearly he could feel the sting of them as acutely as though she had already turned away from him. He couldn't allow himself to be caught up in thoughts like these, though. He had to be prepared to take down Red John's people before Red John could take his. He would do whatever it took to protect those that remained precious to him. No matter the cost.


	19. Chapter 19

Jane didn't sleep well that night. He was up late, turning Lisbon's new evidence over in his mind with what they'd discovered about the foster care system and weighing it all against everything else they knew about Red John. He was confident the team had those aspects well in hand, now that the critical connections had been established. Since the next steps would doubtless involve more tedious research, he was content to let them lead on that front. He would take any new information into consideration and apply it to the big picture, of course, but for the present, he intended to focus his own mind on the puzzle of Red John's fixation on Madeleine Hightower.

For the first time in a long while, he stayed in the CBI attic all night. Lisbon didn't like it when he slept there. It always caused her to worry that he was sinking too deeply into his own mind and losing touch with reality. He didn't understand why she believed this would be the case any more in the attic than in his hotel room, but he knew that no amount of logical argument on this point would sway her opinion on the matter. To him, the location was of less importance than the subject of his thoughts. When he had something he needed to think about deeply, he naturally withdrew from others in order to concentrate without interruption. The appeal of the CBI attic was that it was quiet, and when he wanted to focus, it was more convenient to spend the night there than to waste time driving across town to the hotel. He had been making a conscious effort of late not to add unnecessarily to Lisbon's burden of worry, however, so he hadn't been spending quite so much time in the attic. This night, though, he had been caught up in his thoughts and had lost track of time. By the time he'd realized how late it was, it really did seem pointless to go back to the hotel, so he'd settled on his makeshift cot for a cat nap.

He woke at seven, his eyes gritty from the lack of sleep and his back stiff from sleeping on the hard surface of the less than ideally cushioned cot. He stretched, brushed his teeth in the tiny bathroom at the head of the stairs, and then headed down to the CBI gym in the basement to shower, hoping he had a clean suit in his locker. If he got himself cleaned up well enough, maybe Lisbon wouldn't notice that he'd spent the night at the CBI again.

He had to reevaluate this once he arrived in the gym, however. Lisbon was there, working out, and since she was between him and the men's locker room, the chances of her not noticing that he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday went pretty much straight down to zero the minute his foot crossed the threshold.

In lieu of a regular workout on the treadmill or weight machines, she was training in some kind of martial arts with a partner. Kickboxing, or karate, or some combination of the two. With a little wrestling thrown in. It wasn't a real fight, of course—the combatants took care to pull back the weight of their blows before making contact with their opponent's flesh.

Jane stopped dead when he saw them, transfixed by the sight. Lisbon wore capri length black workout pants as well as a tank top and sports bra, and her feet were bare. Her hair was tied back in a long ponytail. She had an expression of fierce concentration on her face, and he wondered if there was anything she did in life with less than one hundred percent worth of effort.

Lisbon, naturally, was the smaller of the two. It made sense that she would choose a training partner larger than herself, since any physical confrontation she was likely to get into in the course of her job was likely to involve an opponent over a head taller than her and who outweighed her by at least fifty pounds. She acquitted herself well, though, despite her opponent's larger size. He may have been bigger, but she was smart and quick; she was holding her own in their mock battle.

Despite the physical disparity between the two combatants, they were fairly well matched. What Lisbon lacked in size, she made up for in intensity. She was agile and lightning quick, striking swiftly and decisively whenever the opportunity presented itself. She fought smart, patiently drawing her opponent into more and more reckless attacks, tiring him out. She knew she would lose the fight if she allowed herself to get trapped in a situation where the outcome relied on a straight match of size and strength, but she was confident enough in her stamina to know she could outlast her opponent if it came down to endurance at the end.

"Show me that move again," she was saying. "I want to get a handle on it before we call it a day."

Her companion obliged her. He indicated for her to begin her attack, and she struck at him. He blocked the move and when she struck again, he used her momentum against her, flipping her over his hip and pinning her face down on the ground.

"Okay," Lisbon panted from her prone position. "I think I know what you did there-" she stopped, catching sight of Jane standing there staring at her. "Jane?"

Her opponent looked up, and Jane realized it was Cho. A fact he surely would have noticed if he hadn't been so preoccupied watching Lisbon in this unexpected environment.

Cho let her up, and Lisbon scrambled to her feet. "What are you doing here?"

"I was just going to the locker room to take a shower," he said, slightly dazed. Lisbon was flushed and sweating from the exercise. A long black strand of her hair had escaped the confines of her ponytail and was sticking to her neck. Jane stared at it, thinking about what she would taste like if he were to take leave of his senses and sweep that strand of hair away from her neck and replace it with his lips.

"Oh," Lisbon said, flustered. "Um, Cho and I were just working out."

Jane forced his eyes over to Cho. Cho was wearing an Oakland A's t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, but otherwise, he just looked like Cho. "I can see that."

"Cho's been showing me some moves he knows from being in the Special Forces," she continued.

"Good," Jane found himself saying. "That could be useful." Then his brain caught up with what she had said and he looked at her again, this time with an entirely different thought in mind. She was as petite and slender as ever, but her arms looked even more toned than usual, the muscles in her biceps and shoulders more clearly defined. She had been training for awhile now, he realized. This wasn't a casual sparring match between co-workers; it had a specific purpose.

She took in his rumpled suit and unshaven face and narrowed her eyes. "Did you sleep here last night?" she demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

"Just a cat nap," he said, his mind rapidly calculating all the facts he had at hand. Lisbon liked to stay fit, but this was more than that. She hadn't started this regime for vanity's sake. She normally preferred to work out alone, but she had forsaken her long runs for sparring matches in the gym. No, probably not forsaken them—just added this into her rotation as part of a cross-training routine. She'd asked Cho for help, and he'd be willing to bet Rigsby and Van Pelt had been tapped as fighting partners as well so she could test her skills against different opponents. In addition, she had convinced Cho to show her moves he had learned in the military. She wasn't working towards some ridiculous fitness goal or even just trying to improve her fighting skills for the usual action she encountered in the field. She was preparing her body for combat.

Jane started to shake slightly as he processed what this meant. Lisbon believed she would be involved in the final conflict with Red John, he realized. She'd finally figured out that as the person closest to him, she was the most vulnerable, and she was taking steps to make sure she could protect herself as well as she could when the final confrontation occurred. The idea of Lisbon calmly resigning herself to the need to sharpen her self-defense skills as preparation for the likelihood of being captured by Red John made him sick to his stomach.

Then it occurred to him that she probably hadn't figured it out at all, and he felt even worse.

Upon reflection, he decided this was the more likely scenario. She had never considered that she might be at any greater risk than the others. She simply assumed she would be there because she was the agent in charge, and she damn well wasn't going to let Jane go after Red John alone, once they finally figured out who he was. In fact, she probably had every intention of doing everything she could to keep Jane out of the fray entirely. As the team leader, she was prepared to assume the greatest risk by confronting the mad man herself. She'd prefer to do it with a gun in her hand, but if that didn't end up being the case, she wanted the security of knowing that she could face him unarmed, if need be.

Lisbon, who had started lecturing him about the evils of what she called his 'horrible old attic,' broke off mid-tirade. "Are you all right?" she asked him with a frown.

He smiled weakly and thrust his hands in his pockets, that she might not notice them trembling. Damn. Ever since Lisbon had taken her little trip to the mountains, all his biofeedback tricks had really gone to hell. "Fine," he said lightly.

Her frown deepened, but before she could interrogate him further, her phone rang. She sighed. "I'll be right back," she said, crossing the room to fetch the ringing phone out of her bag.

Jane watched her go, finding it much easier to calm himself when she was still in his line of sight but her green eyes weren't boring into his.

Then he realized Cho was watching him stare at Lisbon's retreating figure. He looked away from her and met Cho's gaze.

Cho shook his head. "You're in a bad way, man."

"Tell me about it," Jane said gloomily.

Lisbon came back over to them, snapping her phone shut. "We've got a problem," she said.

"What's up?" Cho asked her.

"Clarissa Allen is dead," she told him.

Jane frowned. "The social worker Van Pelt and Rigsby talked to about O'Laughlin?"

"Yeah," Lisbon confirmed. "She was stabbed to death in her office last night. We've got to head down to Stockton to check out the scene."

"Got it," Cho said.

Lisbon checked her watch. "I'm gonna hit the showers. We're leaving in twenty minutes."

Xxx

When they arrived at the social services office in Stockton, the scene was a mess. Rigsby and Van Pelt were already there, arguing with several extremely disgruntled looking members of the local PD. They'd managed to keep the Stockton PD from trampling all over the crime scene, but Rigsby was looking a bit tight about the mouth and Van Pelt looked like she was ready to deck somebody.

Lisbon waded into the fray straight away, leaving Jane and Cho to survey the scene. She stated firmly that the case belonged to the CBI, calmly smoothing any ruffled feathers she perceived to be a potential problem while leaving no doubt who was in charge here.

"Looks pretty bad," Cho remarked.

He was right. The victim was slumped over her desk, wide eyes staring, and there was blood everywhere. So much that it seemed incredible that it could have all come from one person.

Having dispatched the local PD to "secure the scene"—which really meant not allowing anyone else to wander in- Lisbon and the others joined them.

Rigsby was frowning at the wall. "There's no smiley face."

"True," Jane agreed.

"What do you think that means?"

"It means Red John didn't kill this woman herself," Jane said.

"You don't know that," Lisbon said. "He might have done it and decided not to leave his signature to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to himself."

Jane shook his head. "No. Red John never allows anger to rule him when he kills. He's too disciplined for that. The person who did this was furious and out of control, slashing everywhere. Red John is brutal, but precise. To him, every cut is almost like a caress. This isn't consistent with his cutting style at all."

"So you think it was one of his disciples," Cho stated.

Jane nodded. "I'm betting it was Red John's man on the inside who did the actual killing. He may have been acting on Red John's orders or he may have simply discovered that she had told us about the connection between the four boys and killed this poor woman to protect himself."

"But in either case, whoever did this did it because they felt like they had to act to protect Red John," Van Pelt surmised.

"Good," Lisbon said grimly. "That means we're on the right track."

"I agree," Jane said. "If the person who did this had waited, it might have taken us weeks or months to figure out who it was. As it is, he's not only confirmed that Van Pelt's theory is correct, but run a great risk of exposing himself. I doubt it will be hard to figure out who committed the murder. It's almost certainly someone who worked here with her, so all we have to do is rattle a few cages around here and someone's bound to point us in the right direction. It's going to be actually finding the culprit once we know who it is that's going to be the tricky part."

"One thing at a time," Lisbon said. "First we have to finish processing the scene, just like we always do. Is there any sign of the murder weapon?"

Cho shook his head. "Not yet. Looks like some kind of sharp implement. Not sure yet if it was a knife or something else. Killer must have taken it when he fled the scene."

"It will be something that was already here," Jane said. "This murder wasn't planned. The killer grabbed whatever was nearest to hand that could get the job done."

Lisbon looked around at the blood spattered walls. "I'm inclined to agree. If it were planned, the killer could have bought himself some more time by killing her at home. The victim lived alone, so it's possible no one would have even noticed she was missing right away."

"What's our next move, boss?" Cho asked.

"We're going to talk to every damn person in the building until we can find someone who saw something last night," Lisbon said decisively. "We'll split up. Cho, you check the security footage. Rigsby and Van Pelt, you guys take the third and fourth floors. Jane and I will take the first two. We'll tag up in two hours and see how far we've gotten."

The team dispersed, but before the allotted two hours had passed, Rigsby and Van Pelt came back downstairs to find Lisbon and Jane. "What's up?" Lisbon asked.

"We think we know who it is," Van Pelt said breathlessly.

Lisbon blinked. "That was fast."

"We talked to Clarissa Allen's co-workers. They said she was here late last night catching up on paperwork. She and her supervisor were the last ones here. And get this. The supervisor didn't report for work today."

"Son of a bitch," Lisbon breathed. "What's the supervisor's name?"

"Irene Gregson," Van Pelt reported. "She fits the profile, boss. She's worked here more than twenty-five years, and as the supervisor for all the case workers on staff, she would have had access to files for all the foster kids in the county."

"Good work," Lisbon said. "Go meet up with Cho and let him know what you've found. See if you can get a lock on what time Irene Gregson left the building from the security footage. Jane and I are going to go to her house and try to pick her up for questioning."

"Will do."

Jane and Lisbon got the address of Irene Gregson's house from the human resources department and drove across town to pay her a visit.

"She's not going to be there," Jane said once they'd gotten in the car.

"That's possible," Lisbon agreed. "But we have to check. And even if she isn't there, she might have left something at the house that will help us figure out where she's gone."

"She's gone to Red John. She won't have left anything at the house that will give us any clues about who or where he is."

"We still have to check," Lisbon said patiently. "So far, the only thing we know for sure is that she didn't show up for work today. She might have just come down with a stomach bug or been in an accident or something."

"You don't believe that. You think it's her. You can feel it in your gut, just like I can."

"Yeah, well, I've been wrong about feelings in my gut before, and so have you. Besides, District Attorneys tend to frown on investigations that are conducted based on the lead investigator's gut."

"When have I been wrong about a feeling in my gut?" Jane demanded.

Lisbon rolled her eyes and didn't dignify his question with an answer.

When they got to the house, Lisbon knocked on the door, but there was no answer. Jane peered in through the front window. "Uh, Lisbon. I think there's something on the front table that you might find interesting."

Lisbon went to look, too. She could feel the warmth of Jane's body at her side as she stood next to him at the window. There was a letter opener lying on the front table, the kind one might find in a typical office setting.

It was still dripping blood onto the carpet.

"Congratulations, Jane," Lisbon said. "You just found us probable cause."

And then she kicked the door in.

Jane trailed in after her. "I could have just picked the lock."

She shook her head. "Forced entry is easier to explain in reports than a note saying 'and then I ordered my consultant to pick the lock.'"

"But you aren't reporting to Bertram on this case, so what does it matter?"

Lisbon took a photograph of the murder weapon on the table with her phone. "Not now, I'm not. But once it's all over, I will. Assuming he doesn't turn out to be a mole for Red John, of course."

"Why bother at all? Once it's over, Bertram isn't going to care about the reports. He'll be too busy lining up press conferences to take credit for all our hard work."

"We need to be accountable for our actions under the law, Jane," Lisbon said, putting on a pair of latex gloves and bagging the letter opener as evidence. "That's the only way to build a case and ensure that justice is served."

"The only way to ensure justice is served by the long arm of the law, you mean," Jane corrected her. "There are other means of serving justice."

"Yes, I'm talking about the word justice the way normal people understand it," Lisbon agreed. "Not the version you practice, where you manipulate people into falling for your schemes so you can mete out some punishment you've devised on your own based on what you think the person deserves."

"It's called poetic justice, Lisbon."

"It's called due process, Jane," she countered. "I know you think the rules don't apply to you, but society would fall apart if everybody acted like you. Justice can't be based on the arbitrary judgment of a single individual, and it can't be selectively enforced based on the whims of one man. We have a social contract that mandates that we all be treated equally under the law."

"That's a stirring speech, Lisbon," Jane said. "The CBI should be sending you into schools to inspire America's youth."

She scowled. "Are you going to mock me, or are you going to help me search the house?"

Jane dutifully helped her search the house, but they didn't find anything much besides the murder weapon and some bloody clothes on the bathroom floor. Jane did find a four piece matching set of luggage with one of the pieces missing, and they agreed that it looked as though Irene Gregson had quickly packed a suitcase and gotten the hell out of Dodge. She certainly hadn't made any effort to cover her tracks or divert suspicion onto anyone else. Lisbon found this encouraging, because it meant they had a clear chain of evidence, but Jane thought it was a bad sign.

They'd been at it about twenty minutes when Van Pelt called.

"Any sign of Gregson at her house?" Van Pelt asked.

"No, but we found the murder weapon on her front table," Lisbon told her.

"Find anything else interesting?"

"Not really. Jane and I have searched the place pretty thoroughly but it looks like she came home to clean up a bit and then just packed up a suitcase and left. How about you?"

"Gregson left the building at about 11pm last night," Van Pelt said. "Security footage has her walking to her car at that time."

"Great. Were you able to get a read on the plates?"

"Yeah, we have them."

"Put a bolo out on the car and make sure her photo is circulated among all the major media outlets. I want to make sure she can't buy a stick of gum without someone recognizing her, let alone get on a bus, a train, or a plane."

"You got it, boss."

Lisbon hung up, and turned back to Jane and relayed the information Van Pelt had given her.

"Gregson didn't make much of an effort to cover her tracks, did she?" Jane remarked.

"Yeah, getting a conviction should be a slam dunk once we catch her," Lisbon replied.

"That's the problem, though, isn't it? We're not going to catch her."

"What? What do you mean? It's a bit soon to be giving up, don't you think? We haven't even started looking for her yet."

"She made no effort whatsoever to conceal the fact that she murdered Clarissa Allen. Murdering someone isn't that hard if you don't care about anyone finding out. It's covering it up that poses the problem for most people."

Lisbon sighed. "What's your point?"

"Look at this place," Jane said, gesturing to their surroundings.

Lisbon looked. She saw a lot of comfortable looking furniture, some awful flowered wallpaper, and not a whole lot else. "What about it?"

"She has no photographs in the whole house. You know what that tells me?"

"What?"

"That there's no one in her life that she cares about leaving behind. She has no ties holding her to this place."

"That doesn't necessarily mean we are not going to catch her."

"Yes, it does. She's going to go straight to Red John, and he's going to make her disappear."

"We're going to find her, Jane. She is going to lead us to Red John."

Jane was less optimistic. "We'll see."


	20. Chapter 20

Much to Lisbon's annoyance and frustration, Jane turned out to be right on this particular point. Lisbon had the whole team focus on the hunt for Irene Gregson for three weeks, but to no avail. They found her car, the driver's side door left open and the keys still in the ignition, abandoned on an isolated mountain road, but there was no sign of her. Jane had given her his superior 'I'm always right,' look when they found this out, but Lisbon doggedly continued ahead, hoping against hope they'd be able to find someone who had seen something or that Gregson would make a mistake and surface somewhere where she might be recognized. But as the leads dried up, Lisbon reluctantly acknowledged that it looked like Jane had been right all along: it was looking increasingly unlikely that they were going to be able to locate Irene Gregson.

After three weeks of fruitless searching, she decided they needed to regroup. She called a team meeting to assess the status of the case as a whole.

"All right guys," she began once they were all gathered in the bullpen. "We're out of leads on the Gregson angle for the moment so I don't want to waste everybody's time chasing down dead ends. We need to figure out our next play. I want us to re-orient ourselves. Gregson was a good lead and it told us something critical we didn't know before, but she is not the only avenue that can lead us to Red John. We need to take a step back and get some perspective on this whole thing."

"What do you suggest, Captain, my Captain?" Jane inquired.

"Let's go over what we know so far. We started this whole thing trying to get a handle on his character under the assumption that would help us find him. I think we need to return to that idea to re-ground ourselves in the bigger picture here. So let's make a list of what we know so far. What do we know about Red John?"

Cho shrugged. "He likes to kill women."

"He lives, works, and kills in California," Van Pelt said.

"He's highly intelligent," Jane put in. "Definitely has an IQ well above average."

"He knows how to hypnotize people," Rigsby offered.

"And he's really good at it," Van Pelt added.

Rigsby shivered. "Yeah. Remember how he convinced Kristina Frye she was dead?"

"I think we all remember that, Rigsby, but thank you for the reminder," Jane said dryly.

"Sorry, man," Rigsby muttered.

"You're correct, however," Jane acknowledged. "It takes an advanced level of skill to hypnotize people so effectively."

"This is good, guys," Lisbon said encouragingly. "What else?"

"He has advanced skills in computers, surveillance techniques, and explosive devices," Van Pelt said. "Plus, he knows how to create false identities."

Jane considered this. "Not necessarily."

Cho turned to him. "What makes you say that?"

Jane shrugged. "Think about it. He relied on Gupta to manage the task of blowing up Dinkler and strapping that bomb onto Lisbon."

Lisbon shuddered. "Don't remind me."

"The point is, even for someone highly intelligent, it takes time to learn advanced skills in all those areas."

"So maybe he has a lot of time on his hands," Cho said.

"I don't think so. He's been very busy killing people, building dams, and recruiting disciples. I don't think he's had much time for many other extracurricular activities. It's more likely that he relies on disciples for at least some of those things."

"How do you know he isn't the one with the computer skills or explosives expertise or whatever and that he just farms out the rest of it?"

"Rosalind said he smelled like pine and nails. That implies he works directly on the construction projects he's involved in. And thanks to Lisbon's research, we are reasonably certain he works for or owns several construction companies that have worked on water projects throughout the state."

"Do you think one of his disciples could be the hypnotist, and Red John just asks him when he needs someone hypnotized?" Cho asked.

"I don't think so," Jane said slowly. "I don't think he would want to rely on someone else for something that would give him such complete control over his subjects. He would want to guard that power for himself."

"You said he has the characteristics of a cult leader," Cho said. "I guess that fits into that desire to dominate others."

Lisbon said, "The notion of him as a cult leader also suggests that he's charismatic and narcissistic."

"And unable to accept criticism," Cho said. "He killed Jane's family just because Jane said he could catch him."

"Yes, he's an image conscious serial killer," Jane said with a twisted smile.

"Actually, it's fairly common for cult leaders to be intolerant of criticism," Van Pelt piped up. "They demand unwavering loyalty from their members, but won't stand being questioned."

Everyone looked at her in surprise. "What?" she said. "I wrote a paper about it in college."

Lisbon shook her head. "All right."

"So where does that leave us?" Cho asked.

"We keep following the leads we have," Lisbon said. "You guys have all been doing excellent work, and we know more now because of it, there's no doubt about it. If we stay the course, something else is bound to break sooner or later."

"All right," Cho said. "I'd like to go back to the Gupta thing, if you don't mind. I have a feeling there's something worth finding there."

"Okay," Lisbon agreed. She looked at Jane. "Jane, I'd like you to spend some time working on figuring out how Red John scouts his victims. If you have any brilliant insights about how he might have learned advanced hypnotism while you're at it, that'd be great, too."

"Very well," Jane agreed. "For what it's worth, Lisbon, I think you should go back to the dam research. You got interrupted by the Gregson thing just as you were starting to make some real progress on it."

"I'm planning on it," she said.

"What about me?" Rigsby asked.

"Rigsby, you stay on Rebecca Anderson," she instructed.

Rigsby didn't look happy about this, but he nodded his assent. "You got it, boss."

"Van Pelt, you'll stay the point person on the Gregson angle if any new leads come up," Lisbon told her. "In the meantime, I'd like you to study up on surveillance methods and see if you can find out what methods Red John has been using to keep an eye on us. I'm convinced he used some kind of surveillance mechanism to get the drop on us in that warehouse when Cho was shot, and I want to know how he managed it. I also want you to see if you can get an idea of how he has set up new identities for his disciples. We know Anthony Gupta, Rebecca Anderson, and Timothy Carter are assumed identities."

She raised her voice. "Speaking of surveillance methods, I want everybody to double up on the bug checks. I know it's a pain, but we have to assume Irene Gregson told him what we're doing, so it's more important than ever that everyone be extra careful."

The team grumbled a bit about the additional bug sweeps, but Lisbon secured everyone's consent in the end. After Grace found one in her car several days later, the grumbling ceased abruptly and Lisbon found she no longer needed to nag anyone about the necessity of regular checks. Finding the bug was a sobering reminder of the need for vigilance. If anything, it sharpened the team's focus.

They all went back to work. Lisbon resumed her research on the construction companies, but unfortunately, she wasn't able to dive into it as deeply as she would have liked to right away because she came down with a bad case of the flu which laid her up for several days.

"Dammit," she grumbled to Jane when he noticed her color was poor and pestered her until she admitted she'd been feeling sick to her stomach the past couple of days. "It was Bernard from accounting that did this to me. He has four kids and they all had the flu last week."

"And he had a hundred and three degree fever himself when he came in here to ask about that insurance issue for Cho. If he infected you, you'd be better off at home where you can't continue to spread the plague to the rest of our unsuspecting co-workers."

"I'll just quarantine myself in my office," Lisbon said dismissively. "I won't breathe on anyone."

"You need to go home," Jane said firmly.

"But—"

"Your research has waited this long; it can wait a few more days. Besides, do you really think you'll be able to crack the Red John case in the state you're in? You might puke all over some critical piece of evidence, and then where would we be?"

Lisbon lost what little color she had remaining. "Don't say puke," she urged with a grimace. "If I don't think about it, I won't do it."

"I'll drive you home," Jane decided.

"Great, a car ride across town with you at the wheel. That'll settle my stomach," Lisbon muttered.

"I'm not taking no for an answer," Jane told her. "Now come on, let's go."

Accordingly, Jane took her home and she spent three miserable days holed up in her apartment. She must be getting old, she concluded. It used to be she could power through just about any virus nature could come up with, but now here she was, so queasy and headachy that she couldn't even concentrate on the most mundane tasks. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so sick she couldn't get through the day on nothing but determination and a steady diet of Tylenol and Pepto-Bismol. As it was, she didn't even feel up to basic activities like eating. She probably wouldn't have even bothered with that, except that Jane kept stopping by and force feeding her ginger ale, toast, and chicken soup. She was able to recover over the weekend, however, and she returned to work on Monday feeling much more like herself.

Cho came into her office before she'd even set her things down. "I caught a break on Gupta," he said without preamble.

"You did?" she said, surprised. "Why didn't you call me?"

"Jane said we should leave you alone until you got better or you'd want to come in. He said you needed to rest or you wouldn't recover."

Lisbon muttered something distinctly unfavorable about consultants who didn't know how to mind their own business under her breath, but decided to wait to kill him until after she'd had her coffee. She sat down at her desk. "What did you find?"

Cho tossed a file on her desk. "Anthony Gupta was born Vikram Advani. Only child of two grocers, born and raised in Bangor, Maine."

"Any connection to the foster care system?" she asked, picking up the file.

Cho shook his head. "No, his parents are both still alive. He ran away from home at seventeen, and they've been estranged ever since. They hadn't heard from him since he left home."

"You talked to them?"

"Yeah. They didn't know much. They said he was an unhappy child. Always a bit of a loner. They put him in therapy but it never took. Then one morning he was just gone."

"Just like that?"

"Didn't leave a note, nothing. They filed a missing persons report and got word a few weeks later that he'd signed up for the army. That's his military file, there."

Lisbon opened up the file. "He was Special Forces?" she asked with surprise, seeing the note at the top of the first page indicating his division and unit.

"Yeah. He was a weapons expert. I talked to his commanding officer and he said Advani was some kind of genius with explosives devices. He said Advani was the best at what he did, but he was not popular in the unit. He kept to himself, didn't really have any friends."

Lisbon was still reading through the file. "He was dishonorably discharged?"

"Yeah."

"The file just says he was discharged for 'failing to act in a manner becoming to an officer of the United States military,'" Lisbon read. She looked up at Cho. "What the hell does that mean?"

"He was working an operation in Iraq when six members of his unit called in a distress call because they were trapped in a building with an explosive device. He was the one who should have responded. The commanding officer said that with his skills, he could have tried to defuse it. It might not have worked, but if anyone could have done it, he could have. But he didn't take action. He just sat there and watched them burn."

"God, how awful."

"Yeah. But that's not even the most interesting part. Take a look at the next page."

Lisbon flipped to the next page and saw a photograph of about thirty men and women dressed in Army fatigues, standing on the steps of a building. Advani stared out at the camera from under his cap, unsmiling. "What am I looking at?"

"You recognize anyone else in that photograph?"

Lisbon cast her eyes over the rest of the people in the photo. "No. Should I?"

Cho tapped his finger above the face of a young woman on the edge of the group, sandy blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun. "How about her?"

Lisbon squinted at the photograph. "She looks a little familiar. I can't place her, though. Who is she?"

"You might not recognize her from this angle. Try thinking of her as though you were looking at her from a fifth story window she'd just jumped out of."

Lisbon stared at him. "Isla? The woman who Red John sent to kill Hightower in the hotel right before we found out O'Laughlin was the mole?"

"Yep. Isla wasn't the name she was born with though. She's identified in the caption on the back as Jennifer Mundy."

Lisbon looked back at the photograph. "I don't believe it. She and Advani were in the same unit?"

"No. Same training class. This picture was taken when they finished training, right before they were sent into active duty. She was assigned to a unit that was deployed to Afghanistan. She went missing in action, and was presumed dead."

"Where's she from?"

"Minneapolis."

"Parents alive?"

"Parents are alive and well, and she's one of seven kids."

Lisbon shook her head. "I don't get it. He's from Maine, she's from Minnesota. They both served abroad, and neither of them have ties to the foster system. Where's the Red John connection? How would he have made contact with these two?"

"It had to have been through the training class somehow," Cho said. "It's the only time I can figure that either of them were ever in California before they dropped off the grid and resurfaced here as Red John's loyal disciples."

"The training was here in California? Whereabouts?"

"Fort Irwin."

Lisbon was more confused than ever. "This makes no sense. I thought we were on to something with the foster care angle. But these two look like they have nothing to do with that."

"Well, we were definitely onto something, or Clarissa Allen would still be alive," Cho pointed out.

Lisbon sighed. "I guess you're right."

Cho looked at the picture again. "Fort Irwin—that's in the middle of the desert. What would Red John have been doing out there?"

"I suppose they need water projects in the desert, too," Lisbon reflected. "Can you get me the dates they were in training at Fort Irwin? Maybe I can match them up to a project by one of the construction companies we think Red John is working for."

"You got it." Cho stood up to leave.

"Thanks. And Cho?"

Cho paused by the door. "Yeah?"

"Good work."

Cho nodded, and Lisbon sat at her desk after he left, turning over this new evidence in her mind. Then she went out to the bullpen.

Jane was lying on the couch. He opened his eyes when he heard her approaching. "Morning, Lisbon."

"Hey. Cho told you about Gupta being in the military?"

"Yes, and our dear friend the mysterious Isla."

"You guys should have called me."

"What for? Cho had the work well in hand. There was no point in disturbing you with this information while you were too sick to do anything about it. It would have only riled you up for no reason and delayed your recovery."

Lisbon closed her eyes and decided she wasn't quite recovered enough to go ten rounds with Jane first thing in the morning. "Next time, please do not bully my team into keeping information from me," she said, keeping her voice calm and neutral when she really felt like smacking him.

"I don't anticipate the need to do so arising in the near future. You're rarely sick."

Lisbon recognized the dodge but decided she was more interested in discussing the latest development in the case than wasting her breath arguing with Jane when she was certain he would feign attention now to placate her only to turn around and do exactly as he pleased. "What do you think about Gupta and Isla both being in the army?"

"I think it's very interesting."

"I was so sure Gupta was going to fit into this whole foster care angle," Lisbon said. "And quite frankly, I wasn't expecting to find Isla at all. Now that we have information on her, too, I'm not even sure what to do with it."

"Yes, that was an unforeseen stroke of good luck," Jane commented. "On the other hand, perhaps we are due a bit of good luck after going so long without any."

"What do you think it means?" Lisbon persisted.

"I don't know," Jane admitted. "Presumably it means that in addition to owning construction companies and recruiting disciples through the foster care system, Red John has connections in the military, as well."

"How is that possible?" Lisbon said in frustration. "How can his reach extend so far and wide?"

"That is the question, isn't it?"

"I just feel like the more we find out about him, the more questions it raises."

"But we are finding out more about him," Jane said. "That's the point. However confusing we may find the facts we're uncovering, we are getting closer, Lisbon. I don't know how all the puzzle pieces fit together yet, but those facts all add up to a single man."

"I'd just feel better if I could see where all this was leading us. Getting closer is all well and good, but as it is, I have this terrible feeling it's going to result in us stepping on an angry snake as we stumble through the dark."

"Perhaps we should all start carrying flashlights everywhere we go," Jane suggested.

Lisbon laughed despite herself. "At last, a pragmatic suggestion from the creative mind of Patrick Jane."

She went back to her office, encouraged by the team's progress and determined to keep shining the light along their path until it exposed the monster at the end of the tunnel.


	21. Chapter 21

Lisbon was in the bullpen. The rest of the team paid her no mind as they worked quietly at their desks. Well, except for Jane, of course, who was in his usual spot on the couch, and was more interested in watching Lisbon than doing any actual work of his own. She'd taken to coming out of her office to stare at her bulletin board whenever she felt like she'd hit a dead end with her research. Looking at the map and all the notes tacked to the board helped her take a step back and get some perspective on the whole thing, keep the big picture in mind. That day, as her gaze roamed the board looking for a new angle from which to consider the bits and pieces they'd managed to collect, her eyes landed on the familiar image of the smiley face.

From the couch, Jane watched the gears turning in her mind. He liked watching Lisbon think. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"I was just thinking about the smiley face," Lisbon told him.

He frowned. "What about it?"

"It's kind of a weird choice for a signature, don't you think?"

Jane shrugged. "Would you rather he'd chosen a symbol from some kind of Satanic ritual or something?"

"Of course not. It just seems odd. Red John likes tea, and Bach, and William Blake poetry. The bloody smiley face just seems kind of… unsophisticated, in comparison."

Jane frowned, and sat up. "I never thought of it like that."

"How do you suppose he ended up picking that particular image as his signature?"

"I'm not sure. Somehow it seems unlikely that he picked it up from one of those cheesy buttons in one of those souvenir shops that specializes in seventies kitsch." Jane looked over at Cho. "What do you think, Cho?"

Cho shrugged. "Maybe he's a Bergman fan."

Lisbon blinked. "Ingrid Bergman? The movie star from the forties? What does she have to do with anything?"

"Nothing. I was talking about Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish film director."

"What's his connection to the smiley face image?" Jane asked curiously.

"The first record of the smiley face image was in one of his early movies."

"Which movie?"

"'Port of Call.'"

"What's it about?"

"It's about a girl who tries to kill herself and then falls in love with a sailor."

"Does the sailor fall in love with her, too?" Jane asked.

"Yeah. But he's conflicted about it because it turns out she's slept with other guys before."

"Ah, so she would have been considered a fallen woman, in that day and age," Jane said sagely.

Lisbon ignored him. "Where does the smiley face come in?"

Cho shrugged. "At one point in the movie, the girl draws a smiley face on the mirror with her lipstick. Only it's frowning instead of smiling."

Lisbon frowned, thinking of the smiley face in Rosalind Harker's bedroom which the lab had confirmed had been drawn in scarlet lipstick. Before she could voice her thoughts, however, she was interrupted by an unfamiliar voice.

A delivery man had entered the bullpen and was looking around. "Hello," he said cheerfully. "Delivery for Patrick Jane?"

Jane raised a finger. "That's me."

The man crossed to Jane and handed him a clipboard. "Sign here, please."

Jane signed, and the delivery man handed him a cardboard box slightly larger than a shoebox. "Here you go. Have a nice day."

"What's that?" Lisbon asked Jane as the delivery man collected his clipboard and left.

"I have no idea," Jane said. "I don't usually receive mail here. I take it this isn't an extremely early birthday gift?"

"It's not from me." She looked at the other members of her team.

"Don't look at us," Cho said.

"Jane's too hard to shop for," Van Pelt agreed.

"Open it," Lisbon urged Jane.

Jane obliged her. He ripped the paper off the package and tore the tape fastening together the flaps of the cardboard box. He reached into the box, looking bemused, and pulled out… a stuffed animal. He turned it over in his hands, looking perplexed. It was a small, plush white lamb with mint green button eyes, the kind of stuffed animal that looked so soft you just wanted to rub your cheek against it to feel the texture of it against your skin. A look Lisbon couldn't quite read flashed across Jane's face; she thought it might have been shock. When he handed her the plush toy, however, the mask was firmly back in place—he looked as composed as ever. She accepted the lamb warily, turning it over in her hands. Then she saw it—the thing that had made Jane react. A small round disk hanging from a red collar around the lamb's neck, bearing the emblem they'd been discussing not five minutes before—the macabre smiley face in miniature, fixed to the collar like a dog's license indicating its ownership.

"It's from Red John," she stated, her voice calm.

"So it would appear," Jane agreed.

"Why the hell would he send you a stuffed animal?" she asked, handing it back to him.

Jane shrugged. "It's obviously a message of some kind."

Lisbon frowned. "What kind of message?"

"I don't know."

"It's got to be a symbol, right?" Rigsby said. "But what does it represent?"

Jane looked at him. "Excellent question, Rigsby. What do lambs usually represent?"

"Innocence," Lisbon offered.

"Purity," said Cho.

"A sacrifice," Van Pelt said quietly.

There was an unpleasant pause.

"I'm afraid we're going to have to assume Grace is correct," Jane said slowly. "He's telling me he's planning to kill again."

"Maybe not," Lisbon said. "Maybe it's just a message about Clarissa Allen's death. Something along the lines of 'see what happens when you get too close?'"

"Stop investigating or else? I don't think so. Clarissa Allen's death was a message unto itself, although one I think he would have preferred not to have sent at all. This is something different—it's a message of intent. Gregson's hasty actions exposed more about him than he's ever allowed us to see before, and he knows it happened because of our investigation. He's unhappy with me, and he's going to take an innocent life to express that unhappiness."

"Why send a message at all?" Rigsby wondered. "Why not just let us just find out for ourselves when it happens like he usually does?"

"He wants me to know it's my fault," Jane said. "That whoever he chooses, their death will be laid at my feet. He wants to savor my guilt."

"How could it be your fault?" Lisbon said angrily. "This whole thing was my idea. If he's going to blame anyone, why not blame me?"

"He doesn't know that," Jane realized with something like relief. That was good. He didn't want Red John's attention drawn to Lisbon any more than it already must be. "He assumes that any idea that brings us closer to him must have come from me."

Cho shook his head. "He thinks you're the only person smart enough to catch him? His ego must be even bigger than yours."

"Hopefully we can use that to our advantage," Jane said. "Arrogance is the intelligent man's downfall. Nobody knows that better than me."

Lisbon frowned at him, clearly displeased by the comparison and about to argue the point, but before she could speak, Cho said, "So how are we supposed to figure out who he's planning to kill?"

"Good question," Jane said. "We need to consider the message carefully."

"The lamb," Rigsby said dubiously.

"Yes. An innocent sacrifice."

"Do you—do you think it means he's going to kill a child?" Van Pelt said tentatively.

Jane grimaced at the thought. "That's entirely possible."

"Well, he's not going to manage it if I have anything to say about it," Lisbon said firmly. "We have to figure out who his intended target is."

"Do you think this has anything to do with the poem?" Cho asked Jane.

"What poem?" Van Pelt asked curiously.

Lisbon had a wild moment of fear that he was going to mention 'The Jade Raven.' Any talk of poetry these days made her mind stray to the handwritten words in Jane's notebook.

Cho, however, had another poet in mind. "Remember how Red John quoted that poem 'The Tyger' to Jane that time?" he said to Van Pelt. "It was written by William Blake."

"What makes you think that the stuffed animal has anything to do with that?" Rigsby said, confused.

"Blake wrote another poem called 'The Lamb,'" Cho informed him.

"What's it about?" Rigsby asked.

"It's a companion piece to 'The Tyger,'" Cho explained. "In 'The Tyger,' the author is speculating about who could have created the something so beautiful and destructive at the same time. In 'The Lamb,' a child is telling a lamb God is the one who created him. Blake references the lamb in 'The Tyger,' too, asking 'Did he who made the Lamb make thee?'"

Van Pelt pulled up the second poem on her computer screen and read a few lines aloud. "'Little Lamb who made thee… He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb.'"

"It's kind of a riddle," Jane said. "The child answers his own question with a pun."

Cho nodded. "There's dual symbolism there. The Lamb as God and as the innocent child."

Rigsby was reading 'The Tyger' on his own screen. "But in 'The Tyger,' the writer doesn't know the answer to his own question. 'What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?' That's the question he poses at the beginning of the poem, but he never comes up with an answer, even at the end."

"Poetry readings are all well and good," Lisbon said impatiently. "But how is that going to help us find a specific child who may be in danger?"

The team speculated on this point for over an hour, but the only conclusion they reached was that Red John was likely to target a child with a specific connection to the case. Jane believed the symbolism would be more meaningful if he chose someone already connected to the case. In the end, Lisbon ended up ordering the team to look into the families of all of Red John's victims, not being able to come up with a better idea than that he was planning to take one of the victims' children.

The whole team devoted the day to the task, desperately trying to narrow down the list of potential victims to an extent that they could have a reasonable chance of providing protection to the most likely targets. When it became clear that they weren't going to be able to narrow down the list without at least a little more to go on, Lisbon sent them all home, advising them to get some rest so they could start fresh in the morning.

Jane stayed. He lay on the leather couch, staring at the Elvis spot on the ceiling and turning the little lamb over and over in his hands. He was certain they were missing something about Red John's message, something that would tell him who the intended victim was.

He inspected the tag hanging from the lamb's neck, but it yielded no further clues than it had upon first examination. The collar, too, did not seem to be anything more than what it appeared to be—a plain red collar. He poked and prodded the body of the little lamb to see if it might contain some clue hidden in its stuffing, but no luck. It was as soft and malleable as it was designed to be.

He returned his mind to the symbolism that had led Red John to choose the lamb in the first place.

_Tyger! Tyger! burning bright  
In the forests of the night,  
What immortal hand or eye  
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?_

The tiger, sleek and terrifying, prowling through the night.

_Little Lamb who made thee …_

_Little Lamb I'll tell thee, _

_He is called by thy name, _

_For he calls himself a Lamb_

The lamb, simple and innocent, representing joy and light.

_Tyger! Tyger! burning bright… What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?_

That central question, never answered: who could create something capable of so much destruction?

_Tyger! Tyger! burning bright… Did he who made the Lamb make thee?_

Was it possible for the tiger and the lamb to share the same Creator? That key question is simply phrased and easily answered in 'The Lamb,' but in 'The Tyger,' even the question itself is more complex. A 'why' is embedded implicitly in the question of 'who.' Who could create such a cruel creature; why was evil permitted to exist?

There was a symmetry between the two poems, in the structure and in the choice of subjects. There would be symmetry, too, in Red John's choice of symbols.

Red John was the tiger. He thought of himself as something fierce and beautiful, a powerful creature to be respected and awed. That much was obvious.

But the lamb… who was the lamb?

_Little Lamb who made thee... he calls himself a Lamb._

Jane ran through the list of children the team had compiled that day, every child they could think of with the remotest connection to one of Red John's victims, but none of them stood out. Were they on the wrong track? Maybe Red John was planning to target a new victim through the foster care system, one he had found through Irene Gregson that the team didn't know about yet. But no, Red John would want Jane to guess. He loved this kind of game, dangling the promise of an answer in front of Jane, knowing that as soon as Jane got close, he could snatch it away again just as easily. He wouldn't have made it impossible for Jane to guess, though; he would have arranged the game to give Jane a sporting chance, so his victory would be that much sweeter when he triumphed over him in the end.

_Thy fearful symmetry…_

The tiger and the lamb…

The lamb and the child…

_I a child and thou a lamb, we are called by his name. _

The lamb… and the Lamb.

Jane sat up slowly. The Lamb as God. The Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. The innocent child and the savior, called by the same name. They'd been looking for the lamb, but perhaps they ought to have been searching for the Lamb. He stood and walked into Lisbon's office. She had a pocket Bible in her desk; he liberated it from the confines of the drawer it normally lived in and went back to his couch. He opened it and flipped to Revelations.

In Revelations, the conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah and the slain Lamb are one and the same. Both creatures represent different facets of Christ. The one who is worthy to face the righteous judgment of God.

The Lion is the Lamb. Lions and tigers. Symmetry.

The Lamb as God. As Jesus. As the savior of mankind.

Red John, as the tiger, represented the evil of man. The lamb represented the good. The good of man…

Jane stared at the lamb in his hands. The one with the green button eyes. Dear God.

This was a message to _him_. And that changed everything. Because in his world, there were two main figures in his life; representing a great divide. Red John was the evil in his life… and Lisbon was the good. She was the Lion, and the Lamb. His hope, and his only possible savior.

Lisbon was the intended sacrifice.


	22. Chapter 22

His memory was hazy, afterwards, about how he'd gotten to his car. He didn't remember leaving the bullpen. He had a vague recollection of taking the stairs three at a time—the thought of waiting for the elevator was unimaginable.

He did remember driving his car through the streets of Sacramento, running every red light between the CBI and Lisbon's apartment at seventy miles an hour.

He parked somewhat askew in front of a fire hydrant, and sprinted up the front walk to her apartment. He seized the handle and tried to turn it, but to no avail. Dimly it occurred to him that it was a good sign that the front door was locked, but he was beyond reason at this point. He pounded on the door wildly with fist and open palm. He called her name, half yelling, half sobbing.

It was taking an eternity for her to answer.

He couldn't bear the waiting. He fumbled in his pocket for his set of lock picks, nearly dropping it in his haste. He drew the tools out of the case, but when he tried to apply them to the lock, his hands were shaking too badly for him to have any hope of success opening it.

The door swung open and Lisbon was there, sleep-tousled and barefoot, her oversized jersey slipping off one shoulder and her gun dangling from one hand.

She did not look happy to see him. "What the hell, Jane?" she complained. "Do you have any idea what kind of racket you were making? I have neighbors, you know."

Jane hurried inside and bolted the door behind him.

"Somebody better be dead," she grumbled, setting her gun down on the desk by the door.

She had barely gotten the words out before he closed the distance between them and crushed her to him.

She stiffened. "Jane? What's going on?"

He couldn't answer right away. He just held her to him, breathing in her familiar spicy scent, savoring the feel of having her cranky, warm softness in his arms, the life thrumming through her.

She put her arms around him automatically, sensing his anxiety through the desperation of his hold on her and instinctively seeking to comfort him despite the fact that she had no idea what had upset him so badly. "Jane, seriously, what's going on?" A note of tension crept into her voice. "Nobody actually died, did they?"

He shook his head mutely, but didn't relinquish his hold on her.

She relaxed against him. "Well, that's a relief."

His heart was beating wildly against his ribcage and he was sure she could feel it thumping erratically against her own chest.

"Hey," she said softly, tightening her arms around him. "It's going to be okay, Jane."

He drew a ragged breath and buried his face in her neck, trying to get control of himself. She was fine. He'd made it in time. She was fine.

"Shh," she murmured, bringing one hand up to stroke the back of his head, her fingertips tangling in his hair. "It's gonna be fine." She continued on in this vein, making soothing noises and murmuring soft words of reassurance without knowing what, exactly, she was reassuring him about.

He listened to her voice and felt her steady heartbeat beneath his. He breathed when she breathed, and eventually his panic subsided to the extent that he could fractionally loosen his hold on her.

She leaned back in his arms so she could look at his face. She gave him a little half smile, and he took another steadying breath. He leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers, his fingers locked together at the small of her back to keep the rest of her close. It appeared he was going to have to do this letting go thing by degrees.

Though he would have been content to remain locked in that moment forever, assured of Lisbon's safety by the warmth of her body pressed against him, there were certain matters he needed to attend to.

Pulling himself away from her was like slowly peeling off a band-aid—every inch of him protested the removal, but he managed it eventually. Well, mostly. Not quite willing or able to let her go entirely, he slid his hand down her arm and slipped his hand into hers.

Then he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket with his other hand and called Cho.

"Hey, it's me," he said when Cho picked up. "I'm at Lisbon's. Can you come over?"

"Is the boss okay?"

"Yes, but I need you here. No need to wake the others for the moment, though. Can you come?"

Cho didn't waste time asking questions. He'd heard everything he needed to in the tone of Jane's voice. "Be right there," he said, and hung up.

Lisbon had listened to this exchange with wide eyes. "Why did you call Cho? Are you going to tell me what's going on now?"

He sighed. "Yes." He drew her over to the couch and tugged her down next to him, keeping a firm grip on her hand.

Now that he'd gotten himself more or less under control and didn't seem to be in such danger of coming apart at the seams, Lisbon was getting impatient. "Well? What's happened?"

He met her eyes. "I figured out the message from Red John."

"You did? What was it?"

"The message is that he's coming after you."

She frowned. "After me?"

"Yes. You're the lamb."

"What? That doesn't make any sense."

"It does, Lisbon. You're the Lion and the Lamb. It's the only explanation that makes sense."

"The Lion and the Lamb? What the hell does that even mean?"

"In the Bible, the Lion is the Lamb," Jane explained.

"Since when are you an expert on the Bible?" she demanded.

"It's an important piece of literature. And I tend to remember things once I've read them, if you recall."

"You've read the whole Bible? And you remember it?" Lisbon seemed to be stuck on this point.

"I don't have it memorized or anything, but I could quote a few of my favorite passages and I could probably hold my own in a debate with most biblical scholars."

She shook her head. "Unbelievable."

"As flattering as your faith in my memory palace is, can we focus here?"

"On your wealth of Biblical knowledge?"

He ignored her. "I'm sure you studied Revelations in Catholic school."

"Of course," she said automatically, still looking skeptical about Jane's supposed expertise on the Good Book.

"In Revelations, the Lion is the Lamb. He's the one responsible for saving everyone. He's good and gentle, like a lamb, but with the strength of a lion. That's you."

"No, that's God," she corrected him.

"It's a metaphor, Lisbon. Red John sees this whole thing as a drama playing out on a great stage."

"Between you and him," Lisbon said. "I have nothing to do with it."

He shook his head, incredulous that she couldn't see the absurdity of that claim. "You're one of the players in this thing, Lisbon, whether you like it or not."

"As a bit part, maybe," Lisbon said doubtfully. "It's you Red John is interested in. I'm only on his radar because of my connection to you."

"That's exactly the point. You're a central figure in my life, therefore you have become very interesting to him."

"Even if that's true, it's a pretty big leap from that to the idea that the lamb he sent has anything to do with me."

"No, it isn't. The Tyger and the Lamb, Lisbon. The lamb is the counterpoint to the tiger. Red John has assigned himself the role of the tiger, a bodily representation of evil. If he was casting about for an equivalent representation of good, I'm sorry, but you're the obvious choice."

"I'm not that good," she said flatly.

"Of course you are," he said, exasperated.

"I'm really not," she muttered.

"Compared to Red John, you are, _Saint_ Teresa."

"Anybody's good, compared to Red John," she scoffed. "And I've always hated that nickname."

"You see my point, though. The nickname, the cross you wear, the lives you save—they all support what I'm saying."

She drew her hand away from him. "This is why you drove over here in the middle of the night and practically broke down my door?"

"Yes. I needed to warn you."

"You couldn't have called?"

He shook his head. His heart was still beating at an unnatural rate. "What if you hadn't answered?"

She stared at him. Then she stood up and scrubbed a hand over her face. "I didn't realize how much this has been affecting you."

"Of course it's affecting me! Red John threatened your life."

"No, I mean the whole thing. I know you want to catch him, but focusing your entire being on this search has never been the best thing for you."

Jane was honestly confused. "What the hell are you talking about?"

She bit her lip. "Maybe I shouldn't have let you stay on this investigation."

"Are you crazy?" Jane demanded. "Of course you should have. You need me."

Lisbon held her ground. "You're too close to it."

"Of course I'm close to it. He killed my wife and child, and now he's threatening you. How could I not be close to it?"

"That's exactly my point. You need to take a step back, get some perspective on this whole thing."

"My perspective is perfectly clear," he said coolly.

She shook her head. "Your skills are invaluable to the team, Jane, and you know I'd be sad not to have you with us, but maybe that's selfish of me. I should be thinking about what's best for you."

"The best thing for me will be when he's not in our lives anymore."

"Not if it tears you apart in the process. I still think having the team focus on the Red John case exclusively is the only way we're going to catch him, but I didn't fully consider what it would do to you."

"It hasn't done anything to me," Jane insisted.

"It's enabling your already obsessive behavior. You always become completely irrational whenever Red John is involved, there's no point in denying it."

Jane resisted the urge to grit his teeth. "I am not being irrational. You're the one being irrational. I experienced a breakthrough on the case, and you're harping on insignificant details."

"Jane, you came rushing over here in a panic because you got this crazy idea in your head that Red John thinks of me as some sort symbolic figure from a William Blake poem."

"I didn't get a crazy idea in my head, I deciphered a clue. You are the lamb. It's perfectly obvious Red John intends to come after you."

"No, it isn't," she said, exasperated. "Red John sent you a stuffed animal, Jane. That's all we know for sure right now." She went to the desk to get her cell phone and started dialing.

Jane followed her. "What are you doing?"

"Calling Cho and telling him he doesn't need to come over here."

He snatched the phone away from her. "Oh, no you're not."

She made a grab for it but he kept it out of her reach. "You shouldn't have woken up Cho over a paranoid theory you came up with in the middle of the night."

He went to the kitchen and opened the fridge, tossing the cell phone into a pitcher of orange juice and ignoring the expletive this produced from Lisbon. "Yes, I should have. Cho knows a lot about security. He can help us figure out what to do."

"Jane, you're overreacting."

"Like hell I am. Red John threatened your life, Lisbon."

"I told you—"

He cut her off. "Open your eyes, Lisbon! You're in danger. The fact that you refuse to see that is scaring the hell out of me."

She set her jaw. "We've had this conversation. I know the risks."

"It's different now. I always knew there was a possibility that he would mark you as a target, but now it's actually happened. He has you in his sights. It's only a matter of time now before he comes after you. The only hope we have of keeping you safe is if you recognize how valuable you are as a way for Red John to get to me."

She snorted her disbelief. "Yeah, right."

He stepped closer to her, prepared to do whatever it took to prove to her the truth of his words. Even if it meant crossing a line he'd sworn to himself he would never cross while Red John was still a threat to her. He cupped her face in his hands. "I'm not going to let him take you away from me," he said fiercely.

Lisbon locked eyes with him. Unconsciously, her lips parted as she watched him warily, clearly uncertain as to what his next move might be.

He bent towards her, closing the distance between them, his gaze focused on her soft mouth.

There was a brusque knock at the door and Lisbon retreated like a startled colt, pulling away from him and going to the door. Flustered, she opened it without even checking the peephole.

Jane sighed inwardly. Had she even been listening to a word he'd said? Clearly he hadn't gotten through to her.

"Hey, Cho," she said.

"Hey," Cho said. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him. His eyes flicked over Lisbon's jersey. "Nice outfit."

Lisbon flushed but otherwise ignored the comment. "I'm sorry you had to come all the way over here."

"Not a problem." He looked at Jane. "What's up?"

"It's nothing," Lisbon assured him. "Jane is…" she paused, trying to think of a tactful way to describe what, exactly, Jane was.

"Lisbon is convinced I've finally cracked," Jane informed him.

Cho looked at him levelly. "Have you?"

"No. I solved the mystery of the stuffed lamb."

"And?"

Jane gestured to their fearless leader. "Lisbon is the lamb."

Cho looked back at Lisbon. "That's not good."

"Cho, tell him the whole idea is completely ridiculous."

"Why do you think Lisbon is the lamb?" Cho asked Jane.

"The lamb represents innocence and purity. The essence of good."

"I'm not an innocent child, Jane," Lisbon said, annoyed. "I'm a grown woman."

"It's not the age that matters, it's the purity of spirit."

She scowled. "I have a dark side, you know."

He rolled his eyes. "Please. I bet you've never done so much as cheat on your math homework once in your life."

The stony silence that met this comment was all he needed to know that he was right. That was Lisbon. Honorable to the core.

"I rest my case. Lisbon the goody two-shoes is the perfect opposite of Red John the evil tiger."

"I've done bad stuff," Lisbon said mutinously.

"I don't think that's the point, boss," Cho said.

Lisbon threw up her arms in exasperation. "This is absurd! In no way do I resemble a lamb. Red John's message has nothing to do with me."

Jane shook his head. "You're in denial."

"I am not," Lisbon protested. She turned to Cho. "Jane hasn't been getting enough sleep and he came up with this crazy idea that totally freaked him out, that's all."

"Let's let Cho be the judge of whether it's crazy or not, shall we?" Jane suggested.

Lisbon assented, and Jane explained his theory to Cho, who listened attentively.

"See?" Lisbon said when he'd finished. "Jane's freaking out over nothing."

Cho shook his head. "I don't think so. What he's saying makes sense."

Lisbon looked at Cho as though he were Judas. "No, it doesn't."

"Think about it, Lisbon," Jane said. "Killing a child is not his usual M.O. and he's given us no indication of any particular child he might plan to target. Red John likes his opponent to be fully engaged before he moves in for the final blow. If he were targeting a specific child, he'd want to give us a sporting chance of figuring out who it is. That makes the game more fun for him. There is nothing about the lamb that points us in the direction of a particular child."

"Or we just haven't figured it out yet," Lisbon said stubbornly.

"Think about it logically. What does he have to gain from killing a random child at this stage in the game? Sure, he could just be planning to feed off the guilt we'd inevitably feel at the realization that our investigation inadvertently put a child in danger, but would that really be enough? We struck a serious blow to him when we discovered the Irene Gregson connection. He relied on her to help him recruit disciples and we took her out of commission. I'm betting that loss was deeply personal to him. He'd want to strike back in a way that is just as personal to us. Targeting you serves multiple purposes. One, it removes the leader of a team that has been a source of great irritation to him and sends a pretty clear message to the rest of that pesky team to back off. Secondly and most importantly, taking you away would sideline me completely. The entirety of the threat against him would thus be removed, all in one fell swoop. You, my dear, are the lynch pin of this little group. Without you, everything would fall apart."

Lisbon opened her mouth to object, but Cho cut her off. "Jane's right, boss. The tiger and the lamb balance each other out. Red John wouldn't have chosen a lamb that didn't have equal symbolic weight."

"Listen to the English literature major, Lisbon," Jane urged her. "He knows of what he speaks."

Cho grimaced. "I thought you were never going to tell anyone about that."

Lisbon ignored this. "You still have no proof that the lamb is supposed to be me."

Cho and Jane exchanged glances.

"What?" Lisbon demanded.

Cho sighed. "Look, William Blake poetry aside, it doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out if you want to get to Jane, you're the easiest way to do it."

Lisbon stared at him in shock.

"You guys are close," Cho continued. "Red John has to know he cares about you."

Lisbon swallowed. "Okay, fine, we're friends. I guess it's not exactly a secret."

Jane could tell Cho was about to point out that friends didn't usually write each other romantic poetry and hastily spoke up. "Plus, the lamb has green eyes. Just like you."

"That's a coincidence."

"No, it isn't. It's a clear message that you are the intended victim. Which is exactly why we need to stop arguing about this and figure out how to keep you safe." He turned to Cho. "Where do we start?"

Cho surveyed Lisbon's apartment. "We should do a bug sweep," he decided.

"I did one when I came home," Lisbon protested.

Cho shook his head. "You left work late. You were probably tired. You might not have been as thorough as usual."

Lisbon muttered under her breath, and agreed to the bug sweep with the air of someone humoring two unruly children.

Due to Jane's insistence on checking every nook and cranny in the place at least twice, it took them over two hours to finish. By the time they were done, Lisbon was even crankier than she had been at having been woken up in the middle of the night in the first place. "See?" she said irritably when their final search yielded no hidden surveillance devices. "No bugs. Now that we've all established that, you can both go home and we can all get some sleep."

Cho shook his head. "You shouldn't be alone tonight."

Lisbon didn't have the energy to argue. "Fine. Sheets for the guest room are in the hall closet. Help yourself. We'll talk about the rest of this in the morning." She looked at Jane. "I trust you'll be fine on the couch," she said sourly.

"Certainly, my dear," he said, though he wouldn't have said no to an invitation to share the bed with Lisbon and her jersey.

She muttered something distinctly unflattering to him.

He settled in on the couch and watched her climb up the stairs.

He'd always known the idea of sharing the bed idea would be a non-starter.


	23. Chapter 23

The next morning, Jane, Lisbon, and Cho were all rather somewhat worse for the wear for the lack of sleep from the night before. Cho wasn't doing too badly, except for rather tired-looking eyes and the occasional jaw-cracking yawn. Of the three of them, Jane was most accustomed to going without sleep, but usually he managed at least a few hours before dawn. That night, he could honestly say he hadn't slept a wink. Every whisper of the wind through the trees was one of Red John's disciples come to steal Lisbon away into the night.

More than once, he considered tiptoeing upstairs and crawling into bed with her on the theory that he might be able to finally relax if she was in his direct line of sight. Ultimately, however, he decided his peace of mind wasn't worth the risk of losing a critical limb at Lisbon's hands when she inevitably woke up to find he'd invaded her bed in the middle of the night. Besides, he needed to stay alert in case Red John or one of his disciples _did_ try to break in.

Lisbon, for her part, was irritable and short-tempered the next day, especially with him. She greeted him in the morning by grouchily informing him that he owed her a new cell phone, and she expected him to deliver one by the end of the day. To Jane's dismay, he discovered she still didn't believe there was any connection between Red John's token and herself. The rest of the team, when he told them, agreed with his interpretation, however. Grace and Rigsby were horrified when Jane filled them in, but agreed that it made sense that Red John would have chosen the lamb as a symbol representing Lisbon.

This of course made Lisbon even more irritable, especially when she discovered Jane had told the rest of the team not to bother spending any more time searching for children who might fit Red John's idea of a lamb and focus on designing protective measures for Lisbon instead.

When she found out they had taken him at his word and abandoned the original search, she threw up her hands. "What if you're wrong, Jane? I'm supposed to just sit back and do nothing when a child could be in danger, just because you're convinced receiving a stuffed animal in the mail means Red John is going to come after me?"

"I'm not wrong, Lisbon," Jane said, growing impatient with her completely myopic state of denial. "Do you honestly believe I would risk the life of an innocent child if I thought there was even the slightest possibility that I might be wrong about this?"

"You never think you're wrong. It has happened before, you know."

Eventually, Jane realized it wasn't so much the idea that Red John might be after her that Lisbon couldn't accept, but rather the symbolism behind his message to Jane that she found so incredible. Catholic Lisbon was deeply uncomfortable with anyone comparing her to a symbol representing her Savior, and Jane eventually realized it was this characterization of herself that she found so hard to accept rather than the notion that Red John might come after her in general.

Once he told them his suspicions, the rest of the team agreed with Jane that they needed to take special precautions to ensure Lisbon's safety. Cho proposed a schedule for them to all watch her in rotations to make sure she was guarded at all times.

Despite the fact that it was four against one in favor of this idea, Lisbon flatly refused the proposed security measures. She and Jane argued over it more than once, but to Jane's increasing frustration, Lisbon remained adamantly against the idea.

"Even assuming you're right about the whole lamb thing, I still wouldn't agree to having the team act as bodyguards," Lisbon told him.

"Why the hell not?"

"They have more important things to do."

"More important than protecting your life from Red John?" he said incredulously.

She had her stubborn face on. "Yes. I'm only one person, Jane. The team can't spend all their time watching me—they need to stay on the work they're already doing so we can finally catch him and stop him from taking any more lives all together."

"That's ridiculous. If one of them was the one who'd been threatened, you'd be the first one to bully them into accepting protection."

She really couldn't argue with that, since it was true, so she ignored it.

"Look, maybe I'd consider it if we could enlist some members of the local PD for the task of watching me go back and forth between work and my apartment, but you're the one who always says we can't trust anyone outside the team. I'm not going to let my team run themselves into the ground trying to guard me twenty-four seven."

No amount of reasoning could change her mind. "We can't spare anyone to babysit me, Jane," was her final word on the matter.

Jane wasn't about to give up so easily, however. He devised some security measures of his own. When Lisbon found him asleep in his car in front of her apartment the next morning, to say she was unhappy with him would have been a vast understatement.

She rapped on the glass of the window to wake him up. He startled awake and rolled down the window.

"This is your plan now?" she demanded. "Hanging around my apartment like some kind of stalker?"

Jane was distracted by her attire. Running shorts and a tank top. "You're going jogging?" he said incredulously.

"As you see," she said shortly.

"Are you crazy?" he demanded. "Do you have any idea how vulnerable that leaves you?"

"What do you suggest? That I never leave my house again?"

He closed his eyes and summoned patience. "Please, Lisbon. Can't you work out at the CBI gym instead for the time being?"

"For God's sake, Jane, you're being ridiculous."

"I'm trying to watch out for you, since you apparently have absolutely no regard for your own well-being."

"Yeah, you're really doing a great job watching out for me by passing out in your car. What were you going to do if Red John did show up? Snore at him?"

"If you weren't being so stubborn about this, I wouldn't have to resort to such extreme measures."

"This isn't a sustainable solution," Lisbon said flatly. "This is exactly why I didn't want the team to try to guard me. If he really is after me, it's too easy to spot the guard and pick them off."

Light dawned. "That's why you didn't want the team to guard you?"

She hesitated. "Among other reasons."

"So you acknowledge that it's possible Red John might be targeting you."

She was silent for a moment. "Yes," she said finally. "I acknowledge it's a possibility that Red John might intend to come after me."

"Then you need to let the team protect you," Jane said immediately.

She shook her head. "I meant what I said before. We need to stay focused on finding clues that will help us go after him, not standing scared waiting for him to come to us. I can't live my life like that."

Jane closed his eyes, sick with the realization she wasn't going to budge on this point. "Lisbon, please. I'm begging you. If you won't let the team guard you, you need to at least take certain safety precautions."

"Like what?" she said warily.

"Not running alone in the wee hours of the morning would be a start."

She sighed. "I guess I can work out at the CBI gym for awhile."

"Thank you."

She was quiet for a moment. "Jane?"

He sighed, prepared for another tirade against what Lisbon called his paranoid and overprotective behavior. "Yes?"

"Thanks," she said quietly.

He blinked. "For what?"

"Look, I still don't know if I agree with your take on this whole lamb thing, and you're definitely driving me crazy with your constant hovering, but I do get that you're just trying to watch out for me. So… thanks for that."

He reached out and took her hand, pressing a kiss to the palm. "I told you. I'm always going to save you, whether you like it or not."

A shiver ran up her arm. "I take it that means I can expect the hovering to continue?" she said, trying to recover.

"I'd say that would be a safe bet," he affirmed.

"Oh, joy," she muttered. But he noticed she didn't seem completely averse to the idea.

They agreed to compromise, when it came to the security measures. Accordingly, she permitted him to have a top of the line security system installed in her apartment. It took the security company four hours to install the system, complete with a keypad and brand new locks, among other things. Lisbon thought he was going overboard when he showed her the shatterproof glass he'd installed in all the windows, but what really got her raising her eyebrows was the tin cans on strings that he hung from the door knobs of her front and bedroom doors.

"Really sophisticated security system you've got there, Jane," she said dryly. "Hard to believe banks aren't lining up for your services in protecting high security vaults."

"Mock all you like, Lisbon," he said, unfazed. "It works."

She eyed the tin cans dubiously. "What are you, nine years old? It looks like something my brothers would have put together when they were kids to keep girls out of their tree house."

"And it kept those pesky females from sneaking in where they weren't wanted, didn't it?" Jane said.

Lisbon was still doubtful. "It's not much of a barricade."

"It's not meant to be a barricade. It's a warning." He swung the door open and shut and the tin cans clattered and clanked. "If someone manages to take the system offline and manages to pick all the locks, at least you'll hear the noise of the tin cans when the door opens. Then you can come down and shoot the intruder. Preferably between the eyes."

Once all the elements of the new security system were in place, Jane spent several hours testing the different pieces. He was able to get through the first three locks on the door with his lock picks, but it took him a long time, and he wasn't able to manage the last two at all, which pleased him. The windows, too, withstood thorough testing. When that was done, he made Van Pelt go through the exercise of trying to hack into the security system. Van Pelt insisted she wasn't a professional hacker, but Jane had confidence in her skills and determined that lacking access to the real deal, she would do.

Even so, when he had finished testing the security system to his satisfaction, he felt a bubble of panic well up inside him at the thought of leaving her.

"Maybe I should stay here with you again tonight," he said after Van Pelt had left. "Just in case."

"No," Lisbon said firmly. "You've just seen for yourself it would be damn near impossible for someone to break in here at this point. I'll be fine on my own."

He smiled with an unaffectedness he didn't feel. "It's just as well," he told her. "You have a terrible couch, anyway."

She gave him a small smile. "Go home, Jane. Get some rest."

Then she did something she'd never done before. She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. "Good night," she said softly.

"Good night," he echoed, still reeling from the sensation of her soft mouth pressed against his cheek. He allowed her to shepherd him out the door, though he'd never felt less like leaving a place in his life. On this side of the door, there was warmth and reassurance and a Lisbon who kissed him on the cheek. On the other side, there was nothing but cold fear.

He paused in the doorway. "Call me before you go to sleep?" he said hopefully.

She sighed. "Jane…"

"Please?"

She caved. "All right."

Jane moved into a new hotel that night. The new place was a far cry from the shabby extended stay hotel he'd been effectively living at for the better part of the past ten years. It was chic and luxurious—five stars, with a price tag to match. Best of all, it was only five blocks from Lisbon's apartment. If she needed him, he could get there in three minutes flat.

He'd just gotten settled in when she made good on her promise to call him before she went to sleep.

She teased him again about being overprotective, but he didn't mind. He told her to just think of it as one more check-in. Since the check-ins had been her idea in the first place, she could hardly complain about _him _being overprotective. She laughed and said at least she wasn't insisting on the team using the contents of their recycling bins to protect them from a notorious killer.

He liked talking to her this way. Talking just to talk, rather than just discussing developments in cases all the time. He liked listening to her low laugh over the phone, how he could hear the smile in her voice as she teased him. Their conversation wandered from the light to the serious and back again, relaxed and unhurried. He remembered glancing at the clock at one point and being surprised to realize that they had been on the phone for over two hours. He didn't suggest they hang up so they could go to sleep, though.

In fact, when Lisbon had started to yawn and finally noticed the time herself, he diverted her before she could make the suggestion that they call it a night, telling her a story from his old carnie days that he was sure would capture her attention.

She fell asleep with the line open. He could tell when it happened because of the change in her breathing. He made no move to hang up. He placed the phone on the pillow next to him and listened. He fell asleep a long time later, listening to the rise and fall of her breath.


	24. Chapter 24

A/N: Two chapters tonight. Enjoy!

xxxx

At Lisbon's insistence, the team reluctantly agreed to stop directing their primary focus on protecting her and returned to the tasks they had been working on prior to the delivery of Red John's lamb. Jane was the only one who was exempt – okay, he had just ignored her orders. Lisbon was dividing her time between continuing her research on what Jane had taken to calling the Iron Properties trifecta and trying to track down Orville Tanner's sister. The latter effort had her heading out of the office quite fairly often for interviews, which made Jane nervous. The fate of Clarissa Allen fresh in his mind, Jane decided to abandon all his earlier lines of inquiry in favor of accompanying Lisbon on all her interviews for the time being.

On the fifth day after receiving the lamb, however, he arrived at the office to find she'd already left. Van Pelt informed him that she'd gone to visit a cousin of Orville and Adelaide Tanner.

"By herself?" Jane said, horrified.

"I think she took Cho with her," Van Pelt offered.

Jane breathed deeply. "Okay."

He called Cho and confirmed Lisbon was safe and sound with the other agent. "I can't believe she left without me," Jane fumed, once he had been assured of her safety.

"I believe it," Cho said. "You're driving her crazy following her around all the time."

"I go on interviews with her all the time!" Jane protested. "Why should this be any different?"

"Because usually you're at least half paying attention to the interview and trying to come up with some scheme or another to catch the murderer. Lately you've just been staring at her like a hawk and assessing your surroundings for threats from Red John."

"I'm watching out for her."

"Lisbon isn't used to being the center of your attention," Cho told him. "It's unsettling for her."

This threw Jane off. "What?"

"You're an intense guy, Jane. Lisbon is used to being around you when that intensity is focused on Red John or another killer. The idea of being the primary object of your observation is a new concept for her. She's finding it a bit unnerving."

"But I…"

"… have been paying attention to her for years?" Cho finished for him. "I know. Thing is, Lisbon doesn't know that. You've done a pretty good job of hiding it from her."

"Is she there with you now?"

"She's inside, talking to the cousin."

"You left her alone in there?"

"I stepped out to take the call."

"You should go back in."

"I will, as soon as you stop freaking out about this."

"Look what happened with Irene Gregson," Jane said, undeterred. "What if the cousin is one of Red John's people? She could be planning to kidnap Lisbon the moment your back is turned."

"The cousin is over seventy years old. I think the boss can take her."

"You can never be too careful."

Cho hung up on him.

Xxx

Jane was waiting on the couch in Lisbon's office when she got back. "You ditched me," he said reproachfully when she came in.

She sighed. "I'm sorry, Jane. I just wasn't up to dealing with your manic obsession today."

"My _manic obsession_?"

She nodded, too tired to find words that might placate him. "I wanted to talk to the Tanners' cousin and your constant hovering is distracting."

"I'm sorry my efforts to protect your life are so _distracting_," he said peevishly.

She held up a hand to forestall him. "Please, Jane. Can we fight about this later? I have a bit of a headache and I'd really rather not go ten rounds with you at the moment."

Jane noted the tension in her neck and the way she winced away from the light. Only Lisbon would describe a near crippling migraine as 'a bit of a headache.' "I take it the interview didn't go well," he said abruptly, hoping she recognized his question as the peace offering that it was.

"Correct," Lisbon said, sitting down on the couch next to him and covering her eyes with her hand. "The cousin barely knew anything about Orville and Adelaide Tanner. She never met Orville or Adelaide herself. Their parents didn't get along and lived in different towns. Their parents died when they were young children and then it seems Adelaide died in some kind of mysterious accident when she was eighteen, so it looks like we're not going to be able to track her down and ask her more about how Orville might have met Red John."

Jane got up and went to the kitchen, coming back with a warm, damp towel. "Put this over your eyes," he instructed. "It'll help with the pain."

She accepted the hot compress wearily and did as he suggested. "Thanks."

"What kind of mysterious accident?" Jane asked after a few moments of sitting in silence with her.

"Hm?" she murmured, not lifting her head from where it rested against the back of the couch.

"What kind of mysterious accident did Adelaide Tanner die in?"

"I don't know Jane," she said tiredly, the compress still resting on her eyes. "That's why the accident is mysterious."

"Car accidents are the most common cause of death for young adults under twenty five years old, so it couldn't be that. What would be mysterious about that?" Jane mused.

"It could be mysterious if it was a hit and run and no one knew who was responsible," Lisbon suggested.

"Then why not just say it was a hit and run? The way you said it, and the way I presume the cousin said it to you, was that the nature of the death was mysterious in and of itself."

Lisbon removed the compress from her eyes and looked at him. "You think Adelaide Tanner might have been murdered?"

"It's possible. Maybe Red John did it. Or Orville himself. Or maybe someone else did, and her death caused Orville to turn to Red John for some reason."

"Or she might not have been murdered at all," Lisbon pointed out.

"Perhaps, but I'm betting there was some kind of foul play involved somewhere along the line, or people wouldn't be referring to her death as 'mysterious.'"

"Great," Lisbon muttered. "One more mystery to solve."

"That's the headache talking. You're intrigued, I know you are."

Lisbon considered his theory. "You think the parents might have been murdered, too? They would have been fairly young when they died. It would have been too early for Red John to have had anything to do with it, but if Orville Tanner lost most of his family to violence at a young age, that could explain why he might have been vulnerable to Red John's persuasions."

"Interesting notion," Jane said. "Definitely a possibility. Who took care of Orville and Adelaide after their parents were killed?"

"I don't know. I asked the cousin about that and she wasn't sure. She thought maybe some cousins on the other side of the family might have taken them in."

They were interrupted by a shout from the bullpen.

"What is it?" Lisbon said, craning her neck to see what had happened.

"Rigsby," Jane said. "Either he's just made a particularly good shot throwing wadded up paper into the waste basket, or he's found something."

Lisbon got up slowly, as though the movement pained her. She set down the compress and walked out to the bullpen somewhat stiffly.

Jane put his hand at the small of her back to support her as he followed her out of the office and she leaned into his touch.

"What's up?" Lisbon asked when they joined the rest of the team in the bullpen. Jane let his hand fall to his side but stayed close to her.

"I found her," Rigsby announced triumphantly. "It took forever, but I found her."

"Found who?" Lisbon asked.

"Rebecca Anderson," he said proudly. "I finally found out something about her that doesn't have anything to do with her unhealthy obsession with cats."

"What'd you find out?" Lisbon said.

"I took your advice, boss, and traced the numbers she listed as references."

"I thought they were all disconnected," Van Pelt said.

"Oh, they were," Rigsby said cheerfully. "Here's the thing, though. The first two numbers were for fake businesses. I couldn't turn up a thing on either of them. The third one, though, was listed as a government office."

"So you were able to get through to that one after all?" Lisbon said, confused.

"Nope. That one was out of service, too. But I thought it was weird she would have gone to the trouble of making up two businesses and use a real organization for the third, so I looked up the number for the government office she'd listed on her resume. I called them and it turned out she actually worked there."

Lisbon frowned. "If she actually worked there, why would she list a fake number?"

"Because she was fired," Rigsby said gleefully.

"What for?" Jane wanted to know.

"Stealing seals," Rigsby said.

"Seals?" Van Pelt repeated.

"Yup. She worked for the county records office. She worked there for over fifteen years, never had a single complaint filed against her, and then one day her supervisor caught her stealing seals—you know, those fancy stamps they use on official documents."

"The county records office," Lisbon repeated with a note of wonder. "Where they issue birth certificates."

Rigsby nodded. "Exactly."

"Ah, official birth certificates," Jane said. "The mother's milk of identity thieves."

"You think that's how Red John set up fake identities for his people?" Cho asked.

"Of course it is," Jane said. "She probably had a whole setup at home, hidden in a cupboard behind her porcelain frog collection. A fancy printer, the right kind of cardstock, she'd have been in business."

"So who did the CBI actually talk to when they called the number listed in her references?"

"I tracked down one of her former co-workers. She told me Rebecca gave her a burner phone and paid her a thousand dollars to pretend the phone belonged to the county records office and sing her praises if anyone called asking for a reference."

Van Pelt frowned. "That seems like a really important job."

Lisbon looked at her. "What, working in the county records office?"

Van Pelt shook her head. "No, I mean for Red John. Having someone like that on the inside to supply fake identities to his other disciples would have been invaluable."

"But she wasn't on the inside anymore," Cho pointed out. "She got fired, remember?"

"Yeah, but why not set her up in another records office? Obviously having someone on the inside of an office like that was useful."

"Because he needed someone he could trust to get themselves hired by the CBI and assigned to Bosco's team so he could monitor their investigation," Jane said. "He must have known her for a long time, if he trusted her enough for these critical tasks."

"But he clearly didn't trust her that much, or he wouldn't have killed her just because she'd been caught," Van Pelt said.

"I still have no idea how she connected up with him in the first place," Rigsby said. "I told you she worked at the county records office for twenty years, but there's no sign of her before that—nothing."

"So Rebecca Anderson is probably not her real name," Lisbon concluded. "She must have had a few identity theft tricks up her sleeve before she faked her way into that position."

"Maybe she met him while she worked there," Van Pelt suggested. "He could have met her and found out she worked there. He might have seen it as an opportunity."

"Maybe," Lisbon said doubtfully. "The lack of a paper trail before that is suspicious, though."

"I agree," Jane said. "It's possible you're right, Van Pelt, but it seems more likely that he knew her first and placed her there on purpose."

"Why do you think he killed her, then, if he'd known her so long and trusted her so much?" Cho asked. "She was definitely loyal to him. She didn't seem like she was ever going to give him up, based on that interview you had with her."

"Not on purpose, no," Jane said. "But people can give away information without realizing they are doing it. If I'd had her longer, I might have been able to trick her into revealing something she didn't intend to share."

"Too bad he got to her before you could," Cho commented.

Lisbon shook her head. "I still can't believe how easy it is for him to just cut down one of his own people like that."

"I don't think it is easy for him," Jane said slowly. "I think Rebecca Anderson being captured represented the loss of a great asset to him. To Red John, once a person is no longer useful to him, they become a liability. Rebecca was definitely going down for the murders of Bosco and his team—to him, there was no advantage to keeping her any longer, and a very definite risk in allowing her to live. Still, I think killing her cost him deeply."

"What do you mean?" Cho asked.

"He'd like us to believe he has a limitless supply of followers and the loss of one doesn't mean anything to him, but I don't think that's true. I'm not saying there aren't other followers out there that we don't know about, but it's not true that it doesn't impact him when we take one out of commission. He's not infallible. He makes mistakes. He knows relying on these people makes him vulnerable. We struck a blow to him when we caught Rebecca. And Irene Gregson. And all the rest."

Jane looked around at the rest of the team.

"Slowly but surely, we're weakening him."


	25. Chapter 25

Several days later, Lisbon was in the bullpen staring at her map again, her right hand absently resting on her stomach.

Jane studied her from his position on the couch.

"You okay?" he asked.

She looked at him. "Yeah. Why?"

He gestured to the way she was standing. "You're resting your hand on your stomach. You only do that when you've had too much to eat or you're feeling queasy. You haven't had lunch yet today, so I assume it's the latter."

"It's nothing," she said dismissively. "Probably had some bad cream cheese on my bagel this morning or something."

He frowned. "You sure?"

"I'm fine, Jane," she assured him.

He looked unconvinced. "Okay."

She changed the subject. "What have you been doing with yourself?"

"Since you banished me, you mean?" he said with a slight scowl. Lisbon had effectively thrown him out of the office two days earlier, claiming he was hovering again, and he'd had to entertain himself. He might have been sulking a little.

"It doesn't seem like it was a very effective banishment," Lisbon said dryly. "Here you are."

Jane ignored this. "I've been working on a theory about how Red John chooses his victims. Revenge killings and hapless minions aside, that is."

She looked interested. "Yeah? What have you come up with?"

"Duck ponds," he announced.

"Duck ponds?" Lisbon repeated.

"Duck ponds," he confirmed. "Most of his early victims were concentrated in the Sacramento area. I took a leaf from your book and decided to map them out, but on a smaller scale. I looked at some detailed maps of the city and noticed a lot of the victims lived or worked near some of the larger parks in the area. I went to visit them and realized those parks all had something in common."

"And the thing they have in common is duck ponds?"

"Exactly. So now we know one of Red John's hobbies. He likes to feed ducks."

Lisbon shook her head. "And he managed to combine that hobby with his other hobby of destroying people's lives."

"The multi-tasking serial killer."

She snorted. "Right."

"Anything new here?"

"Not really. Van Pelt is helping me with that list of employees from the iron properties companies but it's slow going. There are just so many of them."

"Nothing stands out?"

"There doesn't seem to be any overlap between the lists. Not that we've found so far, anyway."

"What about the Tanners?"

"I did find out one thing about the Tanners. Remember how I told you Adelaide had died?"

"Yes."

"There was an obituary for her all right, but no death certificate."

"Interesting. Think she faked her death?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm going to look into it a little more," she said, heading back into her office.

Lisbon was true to her word. It was only the next day when she stalked out to the bullpen with a file in her hand and a light in her eye.

"What's up, boss?" Cho asked.

"I found something about the Tanners," Lisbon announced to the team.

"Orville or Adelaide?" Rigsby asked.

"Both. I found out how their parents died."

Jane cracked an eyelid open from his position on the couch. "And?"

"They were murdered. Caleb and Magdalena Tanner, both shot point blank in the chest with Caleb's own shotgun in the family home at Sparrow's Peak. Police suspected a robbery gone bad but they never found who did it. Adelaide and Orville were asleep upstairs when it happened but they didn't see anything. Adelaide was four at the time; Orville was nine."

"My God. What happened to them afterwards?" Van Pelt asked.

"Their cousin told me they'd been placed with some cousins on the other side of the family, but it turns out that wasn't the case. Two guesses where they ended up."

Jane had both eyes open now. "Foster care."

Lisbon nodded. "Got it in one. They were bounced around different homes, and in between families, they were placed in a group home in Clarksburg."

"Clarksburg," Jane repeated. "That's a little town between Sacramento and Stockton, isn't it?"

"That's right," Lisbon confirmed.

Van Pelt frowned. "I don't get it. Wouldn't Orville have been way too old to have been recruited as one of Red John's disciples by Irene Gregson?"

"I don't think that's what Lisbon is suggesting," Jane said.

"Come on, it can't be a coincidence that those two were in foster care, too," Rigsby said.

"No, it seems unlikely," Jane agreed. "You must have a theory, though, Lisbon, or you wouldn't have bothered to share this with us."

"I don't think Irene Gregson recruited Orville from the foster care system to be one of Red John's allies," she said. "I think Red John recruited him from the foster care system himself."

"As a social worker?" Rigsby said, confused.

"No. I think he was in the system himself."

"You think that's how he and Orville met?" Van Pelt asked.

"It makes sense, doesn't it?" Lisbon said. "Serial killers aren't just born, they're made. They're usually forged from some trauma in their pasts. Why would Red John be an exception? The emotional isolation he probably experienced if he was shuffled around from foster home to foster home could have cemented his anti-social behavioral patterns at a very early age. He was smart, so he might have already learned how to manipulate people into doing his bidding. Hell, if he met Orville when they were both young, he might have been the person who he practiced his techniques on."

Jane considered this. It was an interesting theory, and it would explain a lot. "If he grew up in foster care, that could explain in part why he was so drawn to Rosalind Harker. If she told him the story of how she lost her vision, he might have identified with her as someone who could relate to his own negative experience with the system."

"And if he grew up in the system himself, he also would have known it was a good hunting ground for new young recruits when he decided to form his little band of sociopaths," Lisbon added.

"You really think Red John and Orville Tanner were buddies from the time they were kids?" Rigsby asked Lisbon.

Lisbon shrugged. "Why not? It's as good of a theory as any other, at this point."

"What does it say in the file about Caleb and Magdalena's histories?" Jane asked.

She dropped the file on Jane's chest. "Take a look for yourself."

Jane opened the file.

"Like I said, they never found out what happened to the parents," Lisbon said. "Just one more unsolved mystery associated with this case. Though only tangentially related to Red John, of course."

"No," Jane said. "The mystery of Caleb and Magdalena's deaths is not unsolved."

Lisbon frowned. "What do you mean? It says right there in the file the police never caught the guy."

"Oh, the police didn't solve it," Jane said. "I meant that I solved it, just now."

The others stared at him. "You solved a cold case from forty years ago just by looking at the file for five seconds?" Rigsby said disbelievingly.

"Well, to be fair, if this crime had been committed today, the forensic guys with their fancy CSI tricks probably would have figured it out. But back then, they just took a few photographs and called it a day. In this case, however, the photographs of the scene are key."

"Show me," Lisbon demanded.

Jane stood up and placed the file on the table in the middle of the bullpen where they could all see it. "The police never found the man who killed Caleb and Magdalena Tanner because a man didn't kill them."

Rigsby frowned. "A woman, then?"

"No. Take a look at the trajectory of the gunshots. Based on the blood spatter pattern on the wall behind where the Tanners bodies were found, they originate from a point about four feet off the ground and were aimed upwards." Jane held his hand up about four feet from the ground to illustrate his point. "I'd say the average nine year old is about that tall, wouldn't you?"

"Orville killed his parents?" Lisbon said, shocked.

"So it would seem."

"Why would he do that?" Rigsby asked with a frown.

"The answer to that question, I believe, resides in little Adelaide here." Jane showed them a picture of the Tanners as a family, from before any of them had been killed. "In this photo, you can see the pattern of a fading bruise on Adelaide's arm, about the size and shape that a grown man's hand would leave if he grabbed her roughly. Everyone else in the family is looking at the camera, but Adelaide isn't smiling at the camera. She's afraid, and she's looking at her father. He abused her, and she was terrified of him."

He pointed at the other photograph again. "Now look here. Let's say Orville is the one who pulled the trigger. It's fairly easy to imagine what might have happened. Caleb grabs Adelaide out of bed late one night and brings her downstairs after the rest of the family has gone to sleep. This isn't the first time this has happened. Orville wakes up and knows what has happened. He wants to protect his sister, but he's never been able to figure out how to fight his father, a grown man. This time, though, he has a plan. He knows his father keeps his shot gun by the back door, so he creeps downstairs and gets it. He goes into the living room and confronts his father. His father is surprised, and lets go of Adelaide. Adelaide runs and hides behind her brother, but she's crying. By this time, Magdalena has woken up too. She comes downstairs and demands to know what's happening. Orville tells her Caleb has been hurting Adelaide—hurting her in a way no man should ever hurt his daughter. But to his surprise, his mother doesn't take Adelaide's side. She starts yelling at Adelaide, blaming her, and Caleb moves to take the gun away from Orville. Orville panics and fires, and Magdalena is now furious with Orville, too. She steps towards him, and he shoots her, too. He throws down the gun and wipes it for prints, and then he goes to the telephone and calls the police, crying that his parents are dead. They show up and figure it's a robbery gone bad, and no one is ever the wiser."

"Jesus," Rigsby breathed. "What do you think happened after that?"

"I can answer that part," Lisbon said. "Orville and Adelaide were placed in a foster home. They were moved around a fair amount, sometimes together, sometimes apart. Eventually, Adelaide was adopted by a family called the Mitchells out in Galt, and she and Orville were more or less separated for good, although they managed to see each other on holidays now and again. Orville continued getting shuffled from foster home to foster home. I talked to the Mitchells, and they told me once he turned eighteen, he got a job at a gas station in Stockton and petitioned the courts to let Adelaide come live with him, but she had been officially adopted by them by this point and the court ruled against him. About eight years later, he married a girl named Janice Wilkerson and she gave birth to their son, Dumar. Janice was killed by a drunk driver when Dumar was five, and Orville raised him on his own until he was arrested for the murder he helped Red John commit. Meanwhile, Adelaide stayed with the Mitchells until she turned eighteen, at which point she vanished without a trace. The Mitchells reported her missing to the police. Three months after she disappeared, the police find a car in a lake with the body of a young woman answering her general description. The police and the Mitchells believed the body belongs to Adelaide Tanner, but the body was too badly decomposed to make a definitive ID, so an official death certificate was never filed. Here's the thing, though. I ran down the autopsy report that was filed for the woman whose body was found in the lake, and the medical examiner noted that her skeleton indicated that she had experienced a compound fracture of the left leg two years before she died. Adelaide never experienced any broken bones after she moved in with the Mitchells."

"Wow. You really did dig deep on this one," Jane said, impressed.

"Personally, I'm inclined to believe that Adelaide was not the girl in the car," Lisbon continued. "Which means that in 1985, Adelaide Tanner just vanished without a trace, never to be seen or heard from again."

Rigsby did a double take. "Did you say 1985?"

Lisbon looked at him. "Yeah. March of '85. Why?"

Rigsby swallowed. "Because that's the same year Rebecca Anderson turned up working for a county record's office without a past."

Lisbon stared at him. "Are you serious?"

"Let me grab the file," he said, rummaging through his desk. He found the file and opened it, running his finger down a page of his notes. "Yeah. Here it is. The county records office hired her in the fall of 1985."

"You think Adelaide Tanner and Rebecca Anderson are the same person?" Cho asked.

"You have to admit, the timing fits pretty neatly."

"There's a way to check," Jane said. "Rigsby, give me that file."

Rigsby handed it over, and Jane turned to Cho. "Cho, do you have a magnifying glass?"

"No. Why would I have a magnifying glass?"

"All good detectives are supposed to have magnifying glasses," Jane said.

"Says who?"

"It's common knowledge. Don't you know anything?"

Cho folded his arms across his chest. "Where's your magnifying glass, then?"

"I'm not a detective, I'm a consultant," Jane said.

Van Pelt rolled her eyes. "I have a magnifying glass, Jane." She extracted one from her desk and handed it to Jane.

"Thank you, Grace," he said as he accepted it. "Glad to see someone around here has a proper appreciation for the classics."

They all crowded around him to see what he was doing as he opened Rebecca Anderson's file to the picture that had appeared on her CBI badge and the other file to the family photo of the Tanners in which Adelaide was only four years old. Jane pored over the two photographs with the magnifying glass for several minutes before announcing, "It's her."

"How can you tell?" Lisbon demanded, snatching the magnifying glass from him and elbowing him out of the way.

He pointed to the picture of Adelaide. "Facial markers. Look at the slight cleft in the chin, how the ears are ever so slightly pointed, how the left eyebrow is a little bit more arched then the other. Matching one or the other of these individual features wouldn't be conclusive, but taken as a package, there's really very little room for doubt."

"Oh, my God," Lisbon breathed. "It's really her. Rebecca Anderson is Adelaide Tanner."

Rigsby frowned. "If she went missing in March and didn't show up in Sacramento until fall, what was she doing with herself for those missing six months?"

"Shacking up with Red John would be my guess," Jane said.

"You think they were lovers?" Cho asked.

"It would make sense, don't you think? Adelaide was sexually abused by her father at a very young age. It's likely she would have been drawn to an older man with a dominant personality. If she and Orville met him when they were in foster care, she could easily have developed a crush on a charismatic friend of her older brother. You heard how she talked about him when we interviewed her after she killed Bosco and his team. She believed she was in love with him and that he was in love with her."

"You think Red John loved her back?" Rigsby said skeptically.

"Of course not. He would have encouraged her affection for him because he would have seen it as a means to manipulate her for his own ends. And it worked. All he had to do was spend a few months with her and he got a lifetime of devoted service out of her. He probably didn't even give her his full attention during that time- he probably knew he could satisfy her with only scraps of affection while he focused on building his network."

"So now we know Rebecca was Orville's sister," Lisbon said wonderingly. She patted Rigsby's shoulder. "Good work, Wayne."

"Excellent work, both of you," Jane said.

They'd connected one more thread in the spider web.


	26. Chapter 26

The bedtime phone calls had gotten to be a bit of a habit.

Jane was still worried about Lisbon, and had started called her every night just when he knew she normally was getting ready for bed. Though she still got exasperated with him at the office if he hovered too close, she seemed to realize he needed some kind of extra reassurance and tolerated the late night phone calls with reasonably good grace. In fact, he was starting to suspect that she enjoyed them, too. She always acted like the long-suffering care-giver indulging a mental patient when she first picked up, but he could hear the smile in her voice when she heard him on the other end of the line.

These conversations were precious to him. Not just because every minute spent talking to Lisbon was one where he could be absolutely sure she was still breathing, but because Lisbon was more relaxed with him over the phone late at night when she wasn't on the clock. The brusqueness of Agent Lisbon fell away and the teasing humor of Teresa came out in full force. God, what he wouldn't give…

He ruthlessly tamped down such thoughts before they had a chance to fully form and told himself to be content with the simple pleasure of having Lisbon's voice be the last thing he heard before he went to sleep.

As a result, despite his continued fear for her safety, he tended to find himself in a rather more sanguine mood than usual when he got to the CBI in the mornings these days.

And when, one of those mornings, he ran into Lisbon in the parking lot of the CBI offices, he couldn't help the smile that broke out over his face when he saw her.

"Good morning," she greeted him, smiling back.

"Good morning," he returned, his own smile widening. She really had a lovely smile. He really ought to make sure she did it more often.

"Sleep well?" she asked.

"Surprisingly, yes," he told her. "Turns out the image of you pretending to be British for a day in front of an office full of people on your first day of work in college sent me quite happily into dreamland."

She punched him in the arm. She was still smiling, though, so he knew she wasn't mad. "I told you, I lost a bet."

"Were you any good?"

"I was terrible," she admitted. "I had the worst British accent ever. Everyone in the office was looking at me like I was crazy the whole day. But I had to stick it out until the end of the day to meet the terms of the bet, so I just kept saying 'Cheerio' like an idiot to anyone who talked to me. It was completely mortifying."

He chuckled. "I'd have paid good money to have seen that."

They rode up the elevator together and exited it still smiling rather foolishly at one another, but when Van Pelt accosted them before they had even entered the bullpen, her face grim and her shoulders tense, their smiles faded.

"What's wrong?" Lisbon asked immediately. Jane's hand was at the small of her back and he felt the muscles of her lower back tighten under his hand as she reacted to Van Pelt's tension.

Van Pelt bit her lip. "It's Karl. From the tactical advance team."

"Karl Maldonado? The one who helped us on the Vandermeyer bust a few months ago?" Jane asked.

"Yes, him," Van Pelt said impatiently.

"What about him?" Lisbon prompted.

"He's in one of the interrogation rooms."

Lisbon clearly didn't see any cause for alarm in this statement. "Okay," she said slowly. "Is he in there with a suspect?"

"No. He's been in there by himself since the custodial staff got here this morning."

"What has you so freaked out by this fact, Grace?" Jane asked, watching her closely.

"His wrists are in handcuffs, and he's just sitting there." Van Pelt took a deep breath. "With a piece of paper with a red smiley face drawn on it on the table in front of him."

Lisbon was marching towards the interrogation room before Jane had finished processing the shock of this revelation. Cho and Rigsby were outside the door, talking to two members of Maldonado's team.

Van Pelt hurried after her. "It's no good, boss," she said, laying a staying hand on Lisbon's wrist just as she laid her hand on the knob. "He refuses to talk to anyone but Jane."

"Well, that's too damn bad," Lisbon huffed.

Jane rushed over to her side. "Lisbon, wait. It could be a trap."

"Yes, I know," she said irritably. "For you."

"I'm not the one Red John threatened," he reminded her.

"We still don't know that for sure," she said stubbornly.

He closed his eyes. "Lisbon, please. I'll go in there and talk to him for a few minutes. Grace will be right outside the door, and you can watch from the interrogation room."

"Like hell I will," she said indignantly. "I am the team leader on this case. You're going in there with me or you aren't going in there at all."

He could tell she wasn't going to budge on this. He calculated his options rapidly and settled on the most reasonable compromise he could think of. "Fine. But if you come in, Van Pelt comes in, too."

"Fine," she said impatiently. "Let's do it."

He met Van Pelt's gaze and she nodded her understanding. She would keep an eye on Lisbon so he could focus his full attention on Karl Maldonado without being distracted by fear for her safety.

Jane entered the room first, making sure Lisbon and Van Pelt were well behind him.

"Good morning, Karl," Jane said. He took a seat at the table across the table from Maldonado. The two women took positions at his flanks, each leaning up against the wall on either side behind him and glowering menacingly at Maldonado.

The other man smiled at him. "Morning, Jane."

Jane gestured to the handcuffs and the smiley face still before him on the table. "So, what's going on here?"

"Nothing much."

Jane raised an elegant brow. "Nothing much? You're a respected agent with the CBI, yet you appeared to have handcuffed yourself with your own handcuffs and presented yourself to us with a piece of paper which implies that you have some connection to Red John."

"True," Maldonado agreed placidly.

Jane looked at him closely. "Have you been coerced into sitting in here in handcuffs?"

"No."

Jane waved a hand in front of his face. "It doesn't appear you've been hypnotized, either, so I must conclude you are here of your own free will."

"That's right."

Jane nodded to the sheet of paper with the smiley face on it. "What about that? Where did that come from?"

Maldonado smiled. "A friend gave it to me."

"Is your friend Red John?" Jane asked.

Maldonado's smile widened. It was like looking at a shark smile. "I've been told you're a smart one. Guess it didn't take much brains to figure that out."

Jane sat back in his chair. "Well, what's the message?"

"The message?" Maldonado said, feigning ignorance.

"Obviously Red John intends you to give me a message, otherwise why would he have sent you here?"

"Can't get a thing past you, can we?" Maldonado observed.

"The message," Jane repeated. "Let's have it."

Maldonado grinned slyly. "The message is: I am a gift."

Jane frowned. "I am a gift? What is that supposed to mean?"

Maldonado shook his head. "Not you. Me." He gestured to himself. "_I_ am a gift. I'm Red John's gift to you."

"Tell him he shouldn't have," Jane said coolly.

"Red John has been generous with his gifts to you. You ought to be more grateful."

Jane shrugged. "I didn't think much of his last gift. I can't say you're much of an improvement."

"Ah, but that's because you don't know how valuable I am."

"The only way you could be valuable to me is if you could lead me to Red John, and since he was the one who sent you here, it seems unlikely that's going to happen."

"That's awfully conventional thinking, for you. Surely a creative genius of your caliber could find some use for me."

"Meh. You don't seem like such a prize to me. You've been in the CBI a long time, but you've never been more than an average agent. Never climbed the ranks. You get called in when the team leaders need a little extra muscle, but they don't rely on you. When other agents get letters of recommendations or promotions, somehow you're always forgotten, aren't you?"

Maldonado's shark smile flashed again. "There are advantages to being overlooked."

"Yes, I suppose there are," Jane agreed. "I never noticed you. I suppose he knows that I'm not drawn to the mundane."

Maldonado looked amused. "Mundane, am I?"

"Yes, mundane. I never suspected you, but then I never really looked at you." Jane studied him. "Now that I am looking at you, I see that you are utterly unoriginal. You have a brutal nature and a need to dominate women sexually—you are nothing more than a common creep of the highest magnitude. Creeps are not interesting or valuable. They're just creeps. Red John has preyed on your twisted sexual proclivities to win your loyalty. Tell me, does he actually provide women for you to play out your sick fantasies, or does he merely reward you with money so you can purchase sexual services on your own?"

Maldonado grinned, unoffended. "Like I said, Red John is generous with his gifts."

"Of which you are one," Jane repeated.

"Indeed. I am a treasure of incalculable worth."

Behind Jane, Van Pelt snorted. "Some treasure."

Maldonado shifted his gaze to her. She met his eyes defiantly and he smiled again. "Ah, pretty Agent Van Pelt. I've got a treasure for you right here, darlin,' if you'll come a little closer."

"Come any closer to me, and you'll lose that treasure, _darlin,'_" Van Pelt said icily.

Maldonado chuckled at this, unperturbed. "Oh, yes, I'd have fun with you. I do so love when my fillies have spirit. If my business with Jane here weren't so urgent, maybe Red John would have let me take you and your sexy boss here for a ride together."

Jane noticed Maldonado's eyes were dilated as his gaze drifted back and forth between Van Pelt and Lisbon as though he were trying to choose which of them he'd take most pleasure in breaking first. Jane spoke quietly but firmly to bring Maldonado's attention back to him. "What's your business? If it's so urgent, you'd better get on with it."

Maldonado focused on him again. "I'm here at Red John's request."

"To what end?"

Maldonado shrugged. "I'm here to offer you an opportunity."

"What could you possibly offer me?"

"Here is what I offer: You may ask me three questions, and I will answer truthfully. That is what Red John offers to you."

"Any three questions?" Jane asked quickly.

"Oh, there are rules, of course. You may not ask Red John's name, or how to find him. Anything else is fair game."

"What's the catch?" Jane said suspiciously.

"No catch. As I said, I am a gift. A true gift has no strings attached. Red John knows that."

Jane calculated his options rapidly and chose his first question. "Very well. What made you decide to follow Red John?"

"He showed me what my future could be if I followed him. He showed me what truth is. He showed me I could be my own master, and never know fear or longing again, if I remained loyal to him."

"How did he show you that future?"

Maldonado gave him a sly smile. "Is that your second question?"

"Yes."

"He takes us to a special place, the ones who are most loyal to him. He talks to us, and shows us visions of the future. He shows us true visions, ones you can see and touch and feel, so you know the truth of his words. Above all, he shows us how loyalty can yield the greatest, most precious rewards." He smiled again. "You really ought to consider joining him, Jane. It would do wonders for you. You'd live a life free of self-doubt, a life free of guilt."

"I deserve every minute of guilt I've ever experienced and more."

Maldonado shrugged. "Still, you can't deny it's tempting, to be free of it. Think carefully before you reject an offer to join Red John's followers."

"It will be a cold day in hell before I join Red John," Jane stated firmly.

"Very well," Maldonado said, unconcerned. "Have you thought of your final question yet? We're running short on time, I'm afraid."

"Yes. My third question is this: What services have you performed for Red John since you joined him?"

Maldonado looked pleased by this question. "I have performed many services for Red John over the years. Mostly I have provided him with information. Too many times to count, really, so I'll confine myself to the most recent example, for the sake of brevity."

"Not so very long ago, Mr. Jane, it came to my attention that you had devised a certain plan involving a warehouse. A plan which, had it succeeded, might have brought you ever so slightly closer to catching Red John. When I told my master of this plan, he saw it was an opportunity. He removed the evidence you sought from the warehouse, and sent one of my comrades to meet you instead. He knew your team would come with you, you see, and he knew this would be an opportunity to raise the stakes of your little game."

Jane felt, rather than saw, Lisbon tense behind him. "You son of a bitch," she hissed. "You nearly got one of my people killed."

Maldonado smiled at her. "How is Agent Cho doing these days, anyway?"

Lisbon lunged for him, but Van Pelt had her pinned up against the wall before she could get within five feet of him.

"He's not worth it, boss," Van Pelt told her, keeping her firmly pressed against the wall. "Killing him isn't worth your career."

Lisbon was so surprised she didn't even fight back. "I'm not going to kill him," she said furiously. "I'm going to break his goddamned nose."

"It could be a trick," Van Pelt said, not loosening her hold one bit. "I'm not letting him get close to you."

Jane found himself on his feet, unconsciously shifting to place himself more firmly between Maldonado and the two agents behind him.

Maldonado stood, too. He smiled again. "Time's up."

Jane, who had turned his head to look at Lisbon and Van Pelt, didn't see Maldonado produce a long, thin blade from up his sleeve.

"Jane, look out!" shouted Lisbon.

Startled, Jane turned just in time to see Maldonado raise the blade in his cuffed hands and slit his own throat.

Jane stood there, stunned, as the warm spray of blood struck his face.


	27. Chapter 27

A/N: Two chapters again tonight. Happy reading!

xxxx

The powers that be at the CBI were understandably upset to learn that one of their agents had taken his own life on CBI premises after turning himself in as a mole for Red John. They immediately launched a full scale inquiry into the sequence of events that had led to Maldonado's death.

Jane answered all their questions and made his escape. Lisbon, however, they held onto a little longer. One of the drawbacks of being in a position of authority, he supposed. Fortunately, Cho had turned the camera in the interrogation room on from where he had been watching with Rigsby in the observation room, and it had recorded the entirety of their exchange with Maldonado, so no one could credibly accuse them of making the whole thing up. The footage backed up Jane, Lisbon, and Van Pelt's version of events.

Eventually, the bureaucrats released Lisbon from their clutches, and she found Jane on his couch, staring ahead into nothingness.

She sat down next to him. "Hey," she said softly, bumping her knee against his. "You okay?"

He shrugged. "Well, all my major arteries are still intact, which is more than Karl Maldonado can say, so I guess I can't complain. How about you?"

"Better, now that my meeting with Bertram is over," she sighed.

"I thought you weren't giving him status updates."

"Yeah… turns out I had to make an exception to that rule once a suicidal Red John agent killed himself in a CBI interrogation room in front of my entire team. Besides, if Bertram is involved, it's not like he wouldn't have known about it anyway. I didn't tell him anything that Red John wouldn't have already known, if he told Maldonado to turn himself in."

"I see," Jane said distantly.

"So what do you make of it?" she asked in a low voice.

"Which part? The fact that the CBI has had a mole right under our noses all these years, that he turned himself in despite the fact that we didn't have a clue he was involved, or that he killed himself right in front of us, presumably on Red John's orders?"

"All of it, I guess."

"Well," he said slowly. "You know I pride myself on my ability to predict human behavior, but I have to admit I didn't see this one coming."

Lisbon let out a snort of mirthless laughter. "That makes two of us. I still can't believe it. I can't believe Karl was Red John's man."

"I can't believe I never noticed Karl was a sociopath," Jane said bitterly.

"I just wish we could have gotten something useful out of him before he—"

"—ruined the carpet in the interrogation room?" Jane suggested.

"Before he took his own life less than ten feet away from us," Lisbon finished.

"Don't despair, Lisbon. I believe we learned several useful things from Maldonado."

"Like what?"

He shrugged. "We learned how Red John is always one step ahead of us. We know now that he was the one who told Red John about the plan in the warehouse that got Cho shot."

"How did he figure that out?" Lisbon asked with a shudder. "I know no one on the team told him about it."

"My guess? Good, old-fashioned eavesdropping."

"That was one of his services to Red John," Lisbon said. "Getting close enough to listen in on the team's plans and passing that information along."

"More importantly, he said that was his most recent service," Jane said. "Assuming the computer protocols Van Pelt set up are working as they're supposed to and there isn't another mole in the CBI, that means your security measures are working. Red John has no idea how much we've learned about him since you came up with your little plan to track down his minions."

"What about the bulletin board? Anybody could walk by that thing- I haven't been locking it up at night."

Jane shook his head. "The bulletin board doesn't have anything on it that we didn't already know about when you started this whole thing. You really use it more as a reference point to remind you of what we already know. Presumably Red John is already aware of that information, so leaving the bulletin board out in the bullpen couldn't tell him much more than the fact that we've renewed our focus on him, and I'm certain he knows that by now in any case."

"You really think it's okay for it to be out in the open?"

"I do."

"Okay. What else do you think we learned from Maldonado?"

Jane shrugged. "We learned I was right about how he recruits his disciples and how he convinces them to follow him."

Lisbon was unimpressed. "You figured that out ages ago."

He shook his head. "No. Before it was just a theory. He confirmed my theory was right. Red John shows them visions. Based on what he described, I assume he manipulates their perceptions through hypnosis."

"He said Red John takes the people most loyal to him to a special place," Lisbon said. "What do you think that's about?"

"Not sure," Jane admitted. "But wherever it is, it sounds like he has some kind of initiation for his followers there. Some kind of ritual to bind them to him."

Lisbon shuddered again. "Creepy."

"Definitely creepy," he agreed. He looked at her. "There's something else you should see."

He produced an evidence bag from his front vest pocket containing a tiny metal object approximately the size and shape of a button.

Lisbon squinted at it. "What is that?"

"It's a bug. Audio and video, I'm afraid, which means—"

"—Red John was watching the whole thing," Lisbon finished.

"Correct. I gave the transceiver that was inside it to Van Pelt to see if she can figure out the signal and get a location off it. Cho and Rigsby went with her."

"Think that'll work?"

"Probably not," Jane sighed. "He had to have known we'd find it. I think the only purpose of putting it on Maldonado in the first place was to give Red John the opportunity of seeing our reactions when Maldonado turned himself over to us."

"Why would he want to watch that?"

Jane shrugged. "He sees this all as a game. We're playthings to him. It's more fun for him if he can see for himself the effect his actions have on us."

He could see Lisbon running through the conversation from that morning's interrogation in her mind. "Don't worry," he said. "I don't think we gave anything away that we can't afford him to know about."

Lisbon exhaled. "Thank God."

"There's one thing bothering me about this whole Maldonado situation," Jane said with a frown.

"Only one thing?"

"Why would Red John give him up to us in the first place?" he said, turning his head to stare back at nothingness again. "What is his game? I was so sure we were making progress in breaking up his network, but it must be even more widespread than I feared if he's willing to dispose of one of his disciples just to mess with us."

"Maybe that's the point. Maybe he wanted to prove to you that one more disciple more or less doesn't make a difference to him."

"Wonderful," Jane muttered. "So much for my conviction that we're weakening him, after all."

Lisbon was silent for a moment. "Maybe it's a bluff," she said finally.

Jane turned to look at her again. "A bluff?"

"When we were talking about Rebecca Anderson, you said that he wants us to think that it doesn't matter to him when we take one of his people out of commission. Maybe he knows we're starting to doubt that. Maybe this is his way of betting big on a crappy hand. He's putting on a big, showy front to prevent us from knowing how much we're really affecting him when we sideline one of his operatives."

"Maybe," Jane said broodingly.

Lisbon looked at him for a long moment. "Come on," she said, standing up. "Let's go."

"Go where?"

"Out." She grabbed his hand and tugged him up.

"Out where?"

She shrugged, and pulled him towards the elevator. "Anywhere."

Jane was amused despite himself. "Agent Lisbon, are you suggesting we play hooky?"

"It's nice outside, and being cooped up with Bertram and the rest of the brass all morning has given me a headache," she said archly. "I think a little fresh air would do me good."

"I can get behind this plan," Jane told her, idly noticing that she hadn't yanked her hand away from him yet.

"Great. Now, come on. I'll let you buy me an ice cream."

Jane smiled. "Well, how can I say no to that?"

She led the way towards sunshine and ice cream. Jane hung on to her hand and followed.


	28. Chapter 28

Lisbon felt awful.

She blinked and told herself sternly to pay attention to the monthly budget meeting she was attending, but she felt dizzy and nauseous and it was difficult to focus. She hadn't been feeling well for the past several days and she knew her performance had been suffering as a result. After their recent success discovering Rebecca Anderson's true identity, she'd been able to devote her full attention to her research on the iron properties companies. As a result, she'd finally started making some progress on narrowing down the list of employees, but over the last few days she'd found herself more often than not scanning the lists of names only to realize she hadn't absorbed the words on the page she'd just read and having to start over again.

It was no good. Bernard from accounting was droning on about quarterly projections and Lisbon gave up trying to pay attention. She let her mind wander.

She hoped Jane was doing okay. She was worried about how he was reacting to Maldonado's death. He seemed fine, but it was so hard to tell with him sometimes. He'd definitely been rattled when it happened—hell, so had she—but in typical Jane fashion he betrayed barely a flicker in his composure. He'd seemed fine on their phone calls the last few nights, though, so maybe he really was all right. Yesterday, for example, he'd seemed far more interested in prying into the details of her life back in Chicago than discussing the fact that he'd had Maldonado's blood splattered all over him less than seventy two hours before.

She frowned and rubbed her temple absently against the headache that was trying valiantly to split her skull in two. She was really becoming too attached to those phone calls. Last night she'd had to beg off early because she hadn't been feeling well, but even with a pounding headache she'd been reluctant for the phone call to end. It was just—Jane so rarely shared anything personal about himself. For some reason, the phone calls had become a conduit for facts and anecdotes she'd never imagined hearing from him. She felt like she'd learned more about him over the course of their nightly check-ins in the past few weeks than she had over the past ten years. She greedily drank in the information he offered, and surprised herself by opening up more to him, as well. He always managed to surprise her with stories of things he'd done, or places he'd been. Sometimes he even just surprised her with an opinion on something she would have assumed he didn't care about. She'd always been curious about his past, but unlike Jane himself, she wasn't the type to push; she'd always respected his privacy. Lately, though, Jane had been sharing more of himself with her, entirely of his own volition.

She was jostled out of her reflections by the meeting breaking up at last. Thank God. Maybe she would take a leaf out of Jane's book and lie down on the couch in her office for awhile. Just until her stomach settled down a bit. Someone brushed past her and she swayed slightly. On second thought, maybe she should consider stopping by the ladies room before she vomited all over someone's shoes. With this in mind, she turned left instead of right when she got out of the conference room, concentrating hard on the goal of not throwing up in the hallway.

"Teresa, hey," a cheerful voice called her.

Lisbon tried to pretend she hadn't heard, intent on making a beeline for the nearest restroom, but a staying hand on her shoulder stopped her and she was forced to face her pursuer.

Saunders from Organized Crime was beaming at her. Lisbon smiled weakly back at him. "Hey, Saunders," she said politely, though what she was really thinking was: _crap_.

Saunders was nice enough, but she'd recently made a practice of avoiding him whenever she could. She'd had a run in with him at the last CBI holiday party that had alerted her to the fact that he had a more than friendly interest in her. She'd narrowly escaped being cornered under the mistletoe by him, but she'd had to take desperate measures to effect her escape, and she hadn't quite forgiven him for being the cause of the situation she'd found herself in as a result. She'd fled the offending sprig as soon as she'd spotted it bobbing its way towards her, held aloft by Saunders as he searched for her. Desperate for escape, she'd made the mistake of making a rash promise to Jane in exchange for him helping her hide out on the dance floor, where Saunders was unlikely to follow. Later, it had occurred to her that Jane probably would have danced with her anyway, if she'd just asked like a normal person instead of begging him for help and letting him see her desperation. By that point, however, she'd already allowed herself to be blackmailed into promising to sing backup for Rigsby the next time he managed to trick the team into going to O'Malley's on karaoke night. Really, Jane's sense of humor was completely beyond her at times. She'd wanted to sink into the floor when she'd had to get up on that stage with him sitting there in the front row looking so amused she thought his face might actually split in two from how wide he was smiling. Since then, she'd made it a practice to engage in evasive maneuvers whenever she spied Saunders heading her way with intent. Unfortunately, this time she hadn't seen him coming.

"How are you?"

She suppressed a groan. God, she hated small talk. Where was Jane when you needed him? He was good at offending people out of chit chatty moods. "Fine. How about yourself?"

"Oh, things are good. Really good. I think I'm going to be up for Ramirez's job when he leaves next month, did you know that? He got a gig with the FBI, so that unit coordinator position is going to be opening up."

"Good for you," she managed. Maybe if she took deep, calming breaths, she wouldn't throw up all over Saunders' really terrible tie.

"You think you'll apply for it?" he asked. "Of course, that would mean we would be competing for the same spot, but you'd be a good fit for it."

She shook her head, which she regretted immediately, as it only increased the dizziness she'd been experiencing. "Not really my thing. I hope you get it."

He smiled at her. "Thanks!"

"So, Jane been up to any crazy tricks lately?" he asked jovially.

"Oh, you know," she said evasively. "Jane is… Jane."

Saunders shook his head. "Man, I know he closes a lot of cases, and everything, but I can't believe some of the stuff the brass has let him get away with."

Lisbon shrugged. "They know his skills are invaluable to the team."

"I guess so. But actually, I didn't want to talk to you about Jane."

Lisbon cringed. "Oh?"

"Listen, Lisbon—Teresa," he said, stepping closer to her. "I've been wondering—"

Lisbon went sheet white as a whiff of his sour coffee breath assaulted her nose and tipped the scale of her nausea over the edge of tolerability, sending her stomach out of its fragile equilibrium. "Excuse me," she mumbled. "Sorry—not feeling well." And she bolted for the ladies room.

She made it just in time. The stall door banged closed behind her and she emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet, retching violently. After, she slid down the wall of the stall and sat crumpled in a heap, feeling exhausted. God, what was the matter with her? She used to have an iron stomach, but lately it felt like the smallest little thing could send her off on a bout of queasiness.

Eventually, she dragged herself out of the stall.

Van Pelt was there, washing her hands.

"Hey," Lisbon said grouchily.

"Hey, boss," Van Pelt said.

Lisbon went to the sink and splashed cool water on her face. She rinsed her mouth and then bent her head to drink from the tap.

Van Pelt rummaged in her purse and wordlessly handed her a breath mint.

"Thanks," Lisbon said gratefully, tearing off the wrapper and popping the mint into her mouth.

"You okay, boss?" Van Pelt asked.

"'M fine," she mumbled around the breath mint.

Van Pelt smiled at her understandingly.

Lisbon frowned at her. That wasn't a normal smile. It was a knowing smile. Conspiratorial. Only she, Lisbon, had no idea what they were conspiring about.

"What?" she said irritably.

Van Pelt hesitated. "I'm not sure how to ask this…"

"Just spit it out," Lisbon said impatiently.

Van Pelt needed no more encouragement. "Boss, are you pregnant?" she asked gently.

Lisbon snorted. "Yeah, right."

Van Pelt looked disappointed. "Oh." Then— "Are you sure?"

Lisbon stared at her. "Are you serious?"

Van Pelt blinked. "Well… yeah."

"What the hell makes you think I might be pregnant?" Lisbon wanted to know.

"You just threw up in the ladies room at work," Van Pelt pointed out. "It's kind of a classic sign."

"I'm not pregnant," Lisbon said. "I just have this stomach bug I haven't been able to shake, that's all."

Van Pelt shook her head. "It's not a stomach bug."

"It's not?" Lisbon echoed, taken aback by Van Pelt's certainty on the matter.

"A stomach bug lasts a few days. A week, tops. You've been sick for weeks."

"No, I haven't," Lisbon denied. As soon as she said it, though, she had to stop and think about it. How long had this been going on, anyway? She'd been feeling poorly off and on for awhile, but she hadn't really been keeping track of the passage of time. She'd figured it was just stress compounding the symptoms from a particularly virulent strain of the flu. But things hadn't been that bad, had they? It's not like she'd been sick constantly—it seemed to come and go. Whenever the headaches or the nausea got bad enough that she started to consider going to the doctor, she'd get better for a few days and forget about it until they came back.

"You have. And it's worse in the mornings."

Lisbon did a double take. Van Pelt seemed to know an awful lot about it. "It is?"

"Yes. You're just like my sister was when she was pregnant with her first. You have morning sickness."

"No, I don't," Lisbon said, certain of her answer this time.

Van Pelt looked doubtful. "You might not have noticed it yet, but you really ought to go to the doctor to make sure."

Lisbon gave a mirthless laugh. "Trust me, if I were pregnant right now, it would be a medical miracle."

Van Pelt still wasn't convinced. "You're sure?"

"Van Pelt, I haven't even been on a single date in the past six months. Just who do you imagine I've been sleeping with who could have fathered this imaginary child you've invented?"

"I just assumed—"

"Assumed what?" Lisbon demanded.

"Well… you and Jane spend a lot of time together," Van Pelt said delicately.

Lisbon stared at her. "_Patrick_ Jane?"

Van Pelt rolled her eyes. "Yes, Patrick Jane. Who else?"

Lisbon couldn't believe her ears. "All this time, you've been thinking Jane and I are having a child together?"

Van Pelt shrugged. "I don't see either of you settling down with anyone else."

Lisbon hadn't moved past the obvious point. "You think Jane and I are _sleeping_ together?"

"You did spend the night together when you went to San Angelo a couple months ago," Van Pelt pointed out.

"We were in separate rooms!"

"Whatever," Van Pelt said. "I thought you guys had finally gotten past that whole denial thing. Guess I was wrong."

"Now you think we're in denial_?_" Lisbon spluttered.

"Yes," Van Pelt said. "It's obvious you belong together."

"No, it isn't."

"Sure it is. You guys are good for each other."

"Ha!" was all Lisbon could manage in response to such a preposterous statement.

"It's true," Van Pelt persisted. "You balance each other out."

Lisbon missed the days when she could intimidate Van Pelt into silence with a strong glare. "Jane and I are not sleeping together."

"Why not?" Van Pelt asked curiously.

The list of possible answers to that question was so long Lisbon didn't know where to begin. "We work together," she said finally.

Van Pelt looked unimpressed. "Right. Because Jane is so into following rules."

Lisbon glared at her. "I'm his boss."

Van Pelt huffed impatiently. "God, Lisbon, don't you ever get sick of doing what you're supposed to?"

She did get sick of it, as a matter of fact, but that didn't change the fact that someone had to be the responsible one. For better or worse, that someone usually tended to be her. "I—"

Van Pelt cut her off. "I tried following the rules, too, you know. And you know what it got me?"

"What?"

"Engaged to a murdering psychopath. You know what breaking the rules got me?"

"What?" Lisbon said warily.

"A good man who adored me, and some of the happiest times of my adult life."

"It's different with you and Rigsby," Lisbon said. "Rigsby's not…" in love with his dead wife, her brain finished for her, but that wasn't what she meant to say. "What I mean is—"

"Jane cares about you, Lisbon," Van Pelt told her. "I know he tries to hide it, especially from you, but anyone with half a brain can see you're the most important person in his life. If you don't know how he feels about you, then I'm sorry, but you haven't been paying attention."

Lisbon had no idea what to say to this.

Van Pelt picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "I hope you're feeling better. And think about what I said."

She left Lisbon standing by the sink, dumbfounded.

Lisbon pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to recover her thoughts. Her stomach felt better after throwing up, but she still felt headachy and exhausted.

Van Pelt was being ridiculous. She'd actually seemed disappointed to find out Lisbon wasn't pregnant. Like she could handle having a baby in her life right now. Not that she had anything against kids—after raising her brothers, she'd always thought she'd have kids of her own one day. It was one of her few regrets that at this point that seemed unlikely ever to happen. Still, now would be the absolute worst time in the world for that long-buried wish to come true. In addition to the dangers and stress of her normal everyday life, the threat posed by Red John's continued freedom seemed to increase exponentially with every step that brought them closer to him. She didn't think she could bear having one more person she loved under the constant threat of being murdered by Red John.

And Van Pelt thought she and Jane were sleeping together. By this point, Lisbon was used to strangers assuming she and Jane were a couple, and she'd grown mostly immune to the gossip around the CBI that whispered the same, but Van Pelt actually knew them. To find out she had drawn her own conclusions about the nature of their relationship was a bit of a shock. Lisbon couldn't decide which was more surprising—that Van Pelt had independently formed the opinion she and Jane were sleeping together in the first place, or that she seemed to think it was something worthy of encouragement. If she really had been sleeping with Jane, she would have assumed Van Pelt would think she was the world's biggest hypocrite, given that Lisbon had been forced to write up her and Rigsby after Hightower had discovered they were together. But Van Pelt acted like it was the most natural thing in the world. God, did the whole team think she and Jane were sleeping together?

She supposed it wasn't a totally unreasonable assumption, she admitted to herself grudgingly, especially considering Jane's recent overprotective behavior. For her part, she knew she fussed over him more than the others, but she couldn't help it. The others had their own paths, but Jane always seemed a little bit lost. He needed more looking after. And she liked to be needed, so it made sense that they had been drawn to each other.

She wasn't an idiot. Contrary to what Van Pelt believed, she knew Jane cared about her. His paranoid fear for her life was evidence enough that he cared about her well-being. But they were friends, nothing more. He was still in love with his wife, and even if he hadn't been, he was too committed to his mission to have room in his life for anything else. Besides which, he was complicated and exasperating and just plain hard work. It was hard enough dealing with him as her friend and consultant. Having him more intimately involved in her personal life would be a whole other level of complicated.

That was a lie, of course. In her heart of hearts, she knew her own feelings for Jane ran much deeper than friendship. To be perfectly honest, the depth of those feelings scared the crap out of her. Most of the time it was a relief that Jane was too emotionally unavailable to make the likelihood of ever exploring those feelings further anything more than the remotest possibility. It was easier to love him quietly and secretly. The hope and longing that flared up when he did things like look at her too long in isolated hotel rooms and tell her she was sonnet-worthy was too dangerous to bear thinking about.

It was safer to keep him at arm's length. He already had the power to break her—if she let him get any closer to her, she might not be able to put herself back together when the crash inevitably came. So it was lucky, really, that he didn't feel the same way. And if sometimes he did things that made it seem like he felt something more than friendship for her, well, she just needed to be strong enough to recognize that the foolish hopes of unrequited love too easily convert deep-buried longing into dangerous illusions.

Her mind flashed to the poem he'd written about her. A tiny voice in her head whispered that surely the poem was a sign that Jane wasn't entirely indifferent to her. And there had been a moment when he'd come over her apartment the day Red John had sent him the lamb when she would have sworn he was going to kiss her. The voice was very keen to remind her of that.

She ignored the voice and focused on the matter at hand. Van Pelt had been right about one thing—she was sick. She'd been so consumed with the case that she hadn't noticed how bad it had gotten, writing off the periodic bouts of nausea and headaches as lingering symptoms of a stomach bug or as isolated incidents related to stress or something she'd eaten that day. But now that Van Pelt had pointed it out, she realized this had been going on for weeks.

She frowned. That was very unlike her. She was rarely ill, and when she was, she usually spent a couple days sleeping it off and then was as good as new. Maybe something was seriously wrong with her. Fear clutched at her chest at the thought. She'd always thought that if she died young, it would be in the line of duty, and while she knew from personal experience that gunshot wounds were no picnic, at least when they were fatal they usually did their business quickly. She couldn't bear the idea of slowly weakening over a period of months or years from some kind of debilitating illness. She hated the idea of being dependent on other people to help her get through the day to day elements of living. All in all, even death from Red John's knife would be preferable; at least that would be relatively quick.

But that didn't seem right. Surely a wasting illness would involve a steady degeneration by degrees? She'd been feeling sick, yes, but she'd also had periods when she'd bounced back and felt perfectly normal.

She left the bathroom and walked slowly back to her office, puzzling over her situation. A dark suspicion was beginning to form in her mind. She was probably overreacting, she told herself. Spending too much time with Jane and his paranoia. She needed to stop relying on self-diagnosis and go to the doctor to get a professional medical opinion.

She opened the door to her office to find Jane there, sitting on her couch and reading.

"Hey, Lisbon," he said without looking up.

"Hey."

He turned the page. "You're back late. Did Saunders manage to catch you after the budget meeting?"

She scowled. "Yes."

He chuckled. "You've got to give Saunders credit. He's awfully determined when he wants to be. Your efforts to avoid him were bound to fail eventually. Did he finally manage to keep you in one place long enough to ask you out?"

"No, I, um, escaped before he could ask me," Lisbon said uncomfortably.

Jane looked up. "If you weren't busy fending off Saunders, what have you been doing? You've been gone an awfully long time."

Lisbon ignored this.

"I know it sounds ridiculous," Lisbon said. "But I wasn't feeling well and I threw up after the meeting. Van Pelt saw me in the ladies room and, uh…"

"And what?"

"She asked me if I was pregnant," Lisbon said, not quite able to meet his eyes as she said it. She could feel a flush creeping up her neck. She prayed Jane wouldn't notice it, but didn't have much hope that he wouldn't. Curse her Irish skin.

"Pregnant?" Jane said blankly. "How on earth could you be pregnant? You haven't been on a date in over six mo—" he stopped abruptly as realization dawned. "Ah. I see. Van Pelt thinks I'm the one who knocked you up."

Lisbon's face flamed. "Well… yeah."

He shook his head. "Van Pelt really ought to know better by this point. Has she learned nothing from me about the art of observation? If we were sleeping together, we'd both be much more cheerful all the time."

"That isn't the point, Jane," Lisbon said, relieved he wasn't going to make a big deal of this.

"What is the point, then?"

"Van Pelt asked me if I was pregnant because she thought I had morning sickness. Obviously that's not the case, but her question made me realize I've been sick an awful lot over the past few weeks."

Jane frowned. "That's true. You've been experiencing headaches and nausea."

"Right. I thought I just hadn't completely gotten over that virus I had a few weeks ago, but then I started thinking there might be something more to it."

He looked intrigued. "Do tell."

She hesitated. "Jane, if I ask you a question, will you promise not to freak out?"

"I'm hardly given to freaking out, Lisbon," Jane said, rolling his eyes. "I think I've demonstrated by this point that I can keep calm under pressure."

Lisbon took a deep breath. "Do you think it's possible I'm being poisoned?"

Jane went very still. "What?" he said in a voice that was not his own.

"I just thought—I don't normally get sick that often," she fumbled, feeling ridiculous about how over-the-top it all sounded now that she was saying it out loud. "And since you've been so paranoid about that stuffed lamb meaning that Red John was after me, I thought maybe—"

Jane jumped up from the couch. "Oh, my God," he said, wild-eyed. "You're being poisoned."

"Maybe," she qualified quickly, alarmed at the frantic nature of his reaction. "It's just a theory. I'll need to go to my doctor to make sure—"

Jane shook his head. "You can't go to your doctor."

"I'm going to have to at some point if I want to find out for sure," she pointed out. "Not to mention figuring out how to deal with it."

"Of course you need medical attention," Jane said impatiently. "You need to see a doctor immediately. But you shouldn't go see your normal doctor. Red John will be expecting that. He'll have planned for it. What's your doctor's name?"

"Dr. Sheila Nair."

"He'll have gotten to Dr. Nair somehow. Tricked her, hypnotized her, or blackmailed her. Or he might have planted someone in her office or in the pharmacy you use—someone who could switch out whatever treatment Dr. Nair prescribed for something that would hasten, rather than counteract, the effects of whatever drug Red John has been slipping you."

"Jane, you're overreacting again. We don't even know for sure what's happening, and you've already plotted out five steps in a conspiracy that may or may not be real. I could just be sick."

He stepped towards her and grabbed her by the shoulders, giving her a little shake. She winced, as the shake didn't help with the headache and lingering dizziness she was still experiencing, but Jane didn't let go. "Wake up, Lisbon," he said angrily. "You never had a virus. Red John has been poisoning you for weeks—since before he even sent that damn lamb. You have shadows under your eyes, and you've lost weight recently—weight you can't afford to lose. You're pale and clammy. God, I can't believe I let this happen. I can't believe I didn't see it. I've been so focused on looking outward for threats I didn't notice what was happening before my own eyes." A ragged breath tore from his chest. "I should have noticed. I should have noticed he was taking you away right in front of me."

Lisbon knew she ought to say something reassuring, but all she could think to say was, "This is you not freaking out?"

He chuckled then, a mirthless laugh that was unfamiliar to her, and he stepped even closer to her, wrapping his arms around her. "Forgive me," he said. "I would never have made such a promise if I'd had any idea you were going to drop that kind of bombshell on me."

He clutched her tight, and to her surprise, she could feel him trembling against her. "You're shaking," she observed wonderingly.

"Yes," he said, surprising her further with the admission. He leaned back to look in her eyes but did not release her entirely. He smiled ruefully. "That tends to happen when I'm forced to face the possibility of losing you."

It occurred to Lisbon that this was the third time in as many months that he'd panicked and held her like this. Unbidden, Van Pelt's words echoed in her mind. _Jane cares about you. If you haven't noticed that by now, you haven't been paying attention_.

She shoved this entirely unproductive thought from her mind. "So what do we do now?"

He stepped away from her reluctantly, but slid one hand down her arm to capture her hand in his. She permitted this, feeling it would be unwise to make a fuss about it and risk agitating him further. For her part, she was feeling unsettled by how natural it felt to stand hand in hand with Jane while they contemplated their next plan of action.

He considered only for a moment before deciding. "We have to go," he announced, keeping a tight grip on her hand.

He started for the door, pulling her along behind him. He walked quickly and she struggled to keep up as he strode through the bullpen without indicating he had any indication of stopping until they'd gotten to the bottom of this.

The rest of the team looked up at the unexpected sight of Jane dragging Lisbon through the bullpen by the hand.

Van Pelt and Rigsby just stared at them in surprise, but Cho stood up, instantly on the alert. "What's wrong?"

Mindful of how they must look with Jane towing her behind him with that intense expression on his face and remembering her recent revelation that her team probably all thought they were sleeping together, it occurred to Lisbon that the team might be under the impression Jane was kidnapping her for a quickie in the supply closet or something. She opened her mouth to explain, but Jane responded before she had a chance. "Lisbon's been poisoned," he said tersely. "I'm taking her to see a doctor."

"Oh, my God," Grace said, horrified.

"Poisoned?" Rigsby repeated. "But—it's not serious, is it?"

"Of course it's serious," Jane snapped. "She's been poisoned."

Cho's eyes flicked to Lisbon's. "You going to be okay?"

She nodded, rolling her eyes a little at Jane's dramatics. "I'm fine."

Cho looked back at Jane. "You're taking her to the hospital?"

"That won't be necessary," Lisbon said before Jane could reply. "Whatever it is, it's not acute. I'm just going to go to my GP and see if she can figure out what's going on. I should probably call her," she added as an afterthought. "See if she has any appointments free this afternoon."

"We've been over this," Jane said. "You can't go to your normal doctor. She might have been compromised."

"You're acting like it's an established fact that I've been poisoned when in reality it's nothing more than a vague suspicion." Her mind strayed back to the idea that she might have some kind of long term illness. "It's entirely plausible that there's some other explanation."

"Stubborn woman," Jane said, exasperated. "This is your own theory, and you're already doubting it?"

She wriggled her hand free of his grasp and folded her arms across her chest. "It's just a theory, Jane. A good investigator doesn't discount alternative explanations until there's solid proof in favor of one or another."

Jane stepped closer to her, as though he had noticed her extricating herself from his hold but wished to make it clear he had no intention of letting her stray far from his side. "How many times have I told you, your first instinct is usually the right one?"

"Be that as it may, we're not going to figure it out by standing around talking about it amongst ourselves. We need a medical professional to run tests and give us a firm diagnosis before we can hope to have this whole thing resolved."

"I agree. The fact remains, however, that if you _are_ being poisoned, it's too dangerous to go to your normal doctor. Red John would be expecting that."

"Well, what do you suggest?" Lisbon huffed.

Jane didn't miss a beat. "I know this great clinic in Nevada where we can pay in cash and no one will ask any awkward questions."

"No," Lisbon said firmly. "I'm not going all the way to Nevada just to go to the doctor."

Jane glared at her. "I'm not going to hand you over to someone who might be under Red John's influence."

Lisbon sighed, recognizing the stubborn set to his jaw. She was probably never going to be able to go to Dr. Nair for a checkup again. That was a shame, because she was a damn good doctor. "Compromise?"

"What do you suggest?" he said tightly.

"I still have the number for my old doctor in San Francisco. I can call her and ask if she'd be willing to see me even though I'm not her patient anymore."

Jane considered this. "Okay. But we go now, and we don't call ahead."

Realizing this was the best she was going to get, Lisbon relented. "Fine."

"Be safe," Cho said, his eyes serious.

"Don't worry," Jane said grimly. "When it comes to Lisbon's safety, he won't catch me unawares again."

Great. That meant he was going to be even more overprotective than usual. Lisbon sighed, resigning herself to the inevitable, and turned to Cho. "We'll call you guys when we know more, okay?"

"Okay," Cho said.

Jane was radiating tension, and she could tell he was on the verge of grabbing hold of her again and dragging her to the doctor forcibly if she didn't get a move on. Clearly anxious to get going, he addressed the team irritably. "In the meantime, see if you can't figure out how the hell Red John might have poisoned Lisbon right under our noses, won't you?"

"Will do," Van Pelt said, wide-eyed.

"Good." He turned to Lisbon. "Let's go," he said curtly.

Lisbon went, deciding not to think about the fact that no one on the team seemed to find it the least remarkable that Jane intended to go with her to the doctor. He fixed his gaze on her in a way that made her think he had absolutely no intention of letting her out of his sight for the foreseeable future. Good Lord. If it turned out she really had been poisoned, he was going to be insufferable.

Xxx

Jane made the two hour drive to San Francisco in an hour and twenty minutes.

Lisbon held onto the dashboard with a white-knuckled grip. "Jane, can you please slow down?" she pleaded.

"Lisbon, someone may have introduced slow-acting toxins into your system, and we have no idea what they might be or how to counteract them. There's no time to waste. Is this really the best time for you to be complaining about my driving style?"

"It's not that," she told him, clenching her jaw to fight back the nausea. "I'm just still not feeling that well."

Jane looked at her sharply and instantly lessened the pressure of his foot on the gas. "Sorry," he said contritely.

"It's okay," she said, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth in controlled breaths.

Jane obligingly kept the speedometer at a more reasonable level, but he was hunched over the steering wheel as though pushing himself physically forward would get them to their intended destination faster, and his tension level seemed to ratchet up with every mile they traveled at the reduced speed.

Finally, Lisbon had had enough. "Oh, for God's sake," she snapped. "Drive as fast as you want."

He looked at her, half relieved, half apologetic. "You sure?"

She smiled weakly. "I'll probably feel better when I get out of the car, anyway. Might as well make that sooner rather than later."

"Thanks," he said gratefully. He sped up again, but Lisbon noticed he kept his weaving in and out of traffic to a minimum after that.

Xxx

Jane stopped her just outside the door of the office suite housing the practice of Dr. Myra Cavendish. "How do you know Dr. Cavendish?" he asked abruptly.

Lisbon blinked. "I was referred to her by the hospital after this punk Eagan Ramsay stabbed me in the leg back when I was a beat cop in San Francisco."

"Did you talk to her about the assault?"

"Sure, I guess. Ramsay's wife followed me here one time, raving that I was a psychotic bitch who had it in for her husband and insisting that I drop the charges against him. Myra had to call security to have her escorted from the building. Obviously I had to tell her the whole story after that."

"What was the wife's name?"

Lisbon scrunched up her face, remembering. "Jessica, I think. Why?"

Jane didn't answer, but opened the door. He took Lisbon's hand in his again and strode over to the receptionist's desk. "Hello," he said gruffly. "My wife has an appointment with Dr. Cavendish."

The receptionist tapped on her keyboard. "What is the name of the patient?" she asked in a bored tone.

"Jessica Ramsay."

Lisbon groaned inwardly. She should have known.

The receptionist, whose name tag identified her as 'Mindy,' tapped some more on her keyboard. "I don't have an appointment listed under that name for today."

"Honestly," Jane huffed indignantly. "This is the third time Dr. Cavendish has had to reschedule the appointment, and now you're saying you haven't even logged it properly in the system?"

The receptionist looked annoyed. "Perhaps you made a mistake about the time?"

"We haven't made a mistake. The medical assistant, what's her name—"

"Ginger?" Mindy guessed.

"Yes, Ginger, called to confirm the appointment."

"Well, it's not in here."

Jane exhaled in the manner of a man exerting great deal of effort to maintain his patience. "Can you please just tell Dr. Cavendish Jessica Ramsay is here to see her?"

Mindy looked at him suspiciously, guessing correctly that he was full of shit, but too professional to call him on it. "I'll let her know and see if she can squeeze you into the schedule," she said tartly.

"Thank you," Jane said, very much on his dignity.

"Jane," Lisbon hissed in his ear after a nervous glance around them. "This waiting room is full of people who actually made appointments. It's not fair to barge in here and hop the line."

"Oh, please," Jane said. "None of them is being poisoned by a notorious serial killer. That woman over there is clearly suffering from an incurable case of hypochondria. She won't take any lasting harm from having to wait a few extra minutes to air her imaginary complaints to the good doctor."

The door to the inner office opened, and a good-looking woman about ten years older than Lisbon stood in the doorway, staring at Lisbon. Mindy the receptionist stood behind her, a pissed off expression on her face.

"Jessica Ramsay?" Dr. Cavendish said uncertainly.

Lisbon smiled weakly. "Hi, Dr. Cavendish."

Dr. Cavendish gestured for Lisbon to enter. "Come on back."

Lisbon walked toward the door.

Jane made to follow her, and she stopped. "You think you're coming in here with me?" she said incredulously.

"You think I'm _not_ coming in there with you?" Jane said, equally incredulous.

"Jane, this is a _doctor's_ appointment. It's personal. You cannot come in with me."

"It's not like I'm asking to attend your pelvic exam, Lisbon."

Only Jane would think this was a reasonable argument. "You're not coming in."

"Fine," he said. "I'll stay out here. But are you sure you can trust me not to make a scene while my wife is talking to her doctor?"

Lisbon recognized this for the threat it was. She glanced around and realized that everyone in the place was staring at them as they conducted this hushed conversation. She had no doubt that Jane would make good on his threat in the most unpleasant way possible if she didn't let him have his way. "Fine," she said, annoyed. "You can come in."

Accordingly, they followed Dr. Cavendish into an empty exam room, leaving Mindy the receptionist fuming outside.

"So, Jessica," Dr. Cavendish said curiously. "What can I do for you today?"

Lisbon winced at the use of the alias. "Sorry about that," she said, shooting a glare at Jane. "My friend Patrick here is a bit of a practical joker. How are you, Myra?"

"Can't complain," Dr. Cavendish said, eyeing Jane speculatively. "Your friend, Patrick, huh? Looks like you've been moving up in the world in more ways than one since you joined the CBI, Teresa."

Jane took this opportunity to step forward and extend his hand to Dr. Cavendish. "Patrick Jane," he introduced himself. "So pleased to make your acquaintance, Dr. Cavendish. Any friend of Teresa's is a friend of mine."

"Likewise," Dr. Cavendish said.

She started to pull her hand away, but Jane held onto it, looking deep into her eyes. "You have remarkable eyes, Dr. Cavendish, has anyone ever told you that? They're really a striking shade of gray, your eyes. Like the color of the ocean on a cloudy day. There's something so soothing about the color of the ocean on a cloudy day, isn't there? Your eyes are just that color. Such a lovely, soothing color, your eyes."

At that moment, Dr. Cavendish's lovely gray eyes were growing rather glassy and unfocused. Lisbon realized what he was doing just in time.

"Jane!" she hissed. "Cut that out!"

Dr. Cavendish's eyes slid back into focus as the trance was broken.

Jane let go of her hand. "We don't know if we can trust her, Lisbon," he said unapologetically.

"No hypnotizing the good doctor, Jane," Lisbon said firmly. "I've known her for fifteen years. I promise she's trustworthy."

Dr. Cavendish's gray eyes widened. "Hypnotizing?"

Jane shrugged. "A hobby of mine."

"I should have left you in the car," Lisbon muttered. "I am so sorry, Myra. He was raised by wolves, never learned any manners."

"Carnie folk, actually," Jane corrected her. "They're more in the practice of teaching the art of hypnotism to their young than wolves are."

Dr. Cavendish was still staring at him. "Teresa," she said slowly, her eyes still fixed on Jane. "Would you like to tell me what on earth is going on?"

"Yes, of course, I'm sorry," Lisbon apologized again. "You must be terribly confused about all this. Unfortunately, there's a bit of a need for secrecy at the moment. You see, I've been having, uh, a problem, you know, of a medical nature, and we needed—that is, I needed to talk to someone I could trust to be discreet."

Dr. Cavendish's eyes narrowed at Jane, but she still addressed Lisbon. "Why didn't you go to your normal doctor in Sacramento?" she asked suspiciously.

"Long story," Lisbon sighed. "There isn't really time to explain it all, I'm afraid. Do you think you can help me?"

Dr. Cavendish looked back at Lisbon. "Help you with what?"

"Well, I've been feeling nauseous quite a bit recently," Lisbon began. "Over the past several weeks. I didn't think anything of it at first, but it's been going on so long I started to think something might be wrong."

Dr. Cavendish looked at her incredulously. "You know I'm not an OBGYN, right? Shouldn't you be consulting your obstetrician about these symptoms?"

"This was a bad idea," Jane said. "Lisbon, we should go. This woman obviously doesn't know you well enough to be entrusted with your health and safety."

"What? Jane, you're being paranoid again. Myra is a good doctor, and I'm not letting you drive me to Nevada to go to some clinic in the middle of nowhere."

"Dr. Cavendish is obviously under the impression that you're having some kind of clandestine affair with me," Jane said impatiently. "She noticed my wedding ring and doesn't know I'm a widower, so naturally she drew the obvious conclusion. She therefore assumed you didn't want to go to your normal doctor because you didn't want anyone to finding out you were expecting a child with someone else's husband."

"Okay, I didn't do a good job explaining myself, but that's not Myra's fault—"

Jane cut her off. "If she knew you at all, she'd know you'd never sleep with a married man; therefore, she does not know you as well as you think she does. If she doesn't know you as well as you think she does, it stands to reason you don't know her as well as you think you do, either. And if you don't know her as well as you say you do, then she can't be trusted and we need to go somewhere else."

"I trust her, Jane," Lisbon said firmly. "If you don't feel that you can trust my judgment on this point, you're free to leave, and Dr. Cavendish and I will have this conversation alone."

Jane scowled. He crossed his arms across his chest and leaned against the far wall pointedly, clearly indicating he had no intention of being left out of the conversation.

Lisbon turned to Dr. Cavendish. "Myra, I'm not pregnant."

"You're sure?" she asked, with another glance at Jane, who was glowering at her.

Lisbon nodded. "Positive."

"Okay," she said, shaking her head a little. "Can you tell me a little more about what specifically is worrying you?"

Lisbon paused, unsure how to put words to her concern without sounding completely melodramatic.

Jane, of course, had no such reservations. "Lisbon is being poisoned," he told Dr. Cavendish. "We need you to help us figure out with what, and how to reverse the effects."

Dr. Cavendish's jaw dropped. "_Poisoned_?"

"Yes, poisoned," Jane confirmed. "Someone is trying to kill her."

"We're not sure of that," Lisbon said hastily. "We were hoping you could help us determine if that's really the case or if I'm just developing a pre-ulcerous condition because of having to deal with Jane all the time."

"Hey, I've been very good lately," Jane protested. "If I were going to cause you to have an ulcer, don't you think it would have happened already?"

Lisbon shot him a look that said _Not helping,_ and Jane shut up.

Dr. Cavendish was looking like she'd been hit on the back of the head with a heavy object. "You really think someone is poisoning you?" she asked Lisbon.

"It's just a possibility we're looking into," Lisbon said, feeling silly. Really, who went to the doctor and said, _Excuse me, doctor, but I think I'm being poisoned_?

"You were threatened by a serial killer, Lisbon!" Jane burst out, moving away from the wall and stepping towards her. "Would you please stop acting like someone accidentally stepped on your foot in line at the grocery store?"

Lisbon glared at him. "Jane, can you please let Dr. Cavendish do her job, and not try to influence her opinion before she has all the information she needs to come to a conclusion?"

Dr. Cavendish, who felt like she'd been on the back foot since these two first entered her exam room, decided it was time for her to take the reins in hand. Recollecting herself, she turned to Jane. "Right. Mr. Jane, kindly sit down and be quiet so I can talk to my patient, or I will be forced to sedate you."

Jane looked at her, surprised, but he sat.

She turned back to Lisbon. "Tell me your symptoms," she said brusquely.

Lisbon obeyed, listing her symptoms and describing the frequency of their occurrence.

Dr. Cavendish scribbled in her notebook, asking questions about Lisbon's habits and recent medical history in addition to requesting clarification about some of the symptoms she named. She checked Lisbon's pupils and her reflexes, felt her abdomen for any irregularities, and drew a blood sample.

"I'll send this to the lab straight away," she told them once the blood sample had been prepared. "Do you want to wait for the results, or do you want me to call you once we get them back? It might be awhile."

"We'll wait," Jane told her.

"All right. I'm going to attend to my other patients while we're waiting for the results, but you're welcome to stick around. The results should be back later this afternoon."

"Thank you," Lisbon said. "I really appreciate you helping us out with this."

"Of course." The doctor looked around the exam room. "Under the circumstances, perhaps you'd be more comfortable waiting in here, rather than in the waiting room?"

"I don't want to inconvenience you any more than we already have," Lisbon protested. "I'm sure you need this exam room for your other patients."

Dr. Cavendish shook her head. "It's no trouble. I have other exam rooms."

"Thank you," Jane said sincerely. "We'll wait here, if that's all right."

"Very well," Dr. Cavendish picked up the blood sample as she prepared to leave. "I'll put a rush on it, but it might be awhile before we get the results back."

Jane laid a staying hand on Dr. Cavendish's arm before she could leave. "Do me a favor, Doc," he said in a low voice. "Run the tests under another name, will you?"

She stopped and looked at him. "Is it that bad?"

Jane nodded. "I'm afraid so. We're dealing with a very dangerous man here."

She glanced back at Lisbon. "I'll take care of it."

Jane fidgeted restlessly while they waited for the results to come back. Lisbon, still on the exam table and tired of watching him pace the small room like a caged animal, closed her eyes against her lingering headache and actually fell asleep for awhile.

When she woke, Jane had stopped pacing and was sitting on a stool next to her. He held her left hand in both of his. His head was bowed, his forehead lowered to rest on the knuckles of their clasped hands. It looked almost like an attitude of prayer. Except Jane didn't believe in prayer.

He looked up when he sensed her stirring. He looked lost, his eyes boring into her hungrily, tinted with a desperation that made her uneasy. She smiled weakly and patted their joined hands with her free one, hoping this would comfort him enough that he would stop looking her with such frightening intensity.

She sat up, bringing her free hand to her temple and massaging it lightly.

Jane let her hand go and brought one hand up to tentatively touch her hair. "Feeling better?"

"A bit," Lisbon told him, ignoring how good his hand felt in her hair. A feeling she didn't want to name snaked up her chest and throat and threatened to choke her. Sometimes Jane was so good at making her feel, well… cared for. She blinked against the feeling and struggled to regain her equilibrium.

His fingers stroked the ends of her hair, brushing gently against her spine. "Is the headache gone?"

If he didn't stop that soon, she was going to push him off his stool. "Mostly," she answered. She told herself to shift away from his soothing fingers, but couldn't quite bring herself to obey her own mandate. It was all right, she comforted herself. She wasn't well. She could be strong again tomorrow.

Dr. Cavendish returned then, carrying a slim file and a box that reminded Lisbon of a box her father used to use as a container for fishing tackle.

"I figured it out," she announced without preamble. She looked at Lisbon. "You were right. You are being poisoned."

Jane dropped his fingers from the path they were tracing along Lisbon's spine and looked at her accusingly. "I told you. I _told_ you he was after you."

Part of her was actually relieved he was being a jackass again. "Seriously?" Lisbon said incredulously. "You're choosing _now_ to say I told you so?"

Jane ignored her and turned to Dr. Cavendish. "What's she being poisoned with?"

"I'm not positive exactly which chemical agent was used, but it looks like some kind of organophosphate."

Jane stared at her. "Which means what, exactly?"

"It's a chemical compound commonly found in agricultural pesticides," she explained.

"So it's fairly easy to acquire," Jane mused.

"It's not something you could buy at a regular hardware store or anything, but it's widely used in agriculture, so if you worked on a farm or something it wouldn't be hard to get your hands on it."

"Are you sure that's what it is?"

"Reasonably sure, yes. Organophosphates are cholinesterase inhibitors, which interfere with the body's regulation of the nervous system. It's hard to tell for certain without a baseline sample to compare the results to, but at the moment, Teresa's cholinesterase levels are about fifty percent lower than I would expect them to be."

Jane scrubbed his hand over his jaw. "How could she have been exposed?"

"She might have absorbed it through the skin, or through inhalation. It's also possible she could have ingested it through food or drinking water."

Lisbon considered this. "How long between time of exposure and when symptoms occur?"

"Symptoms could occur immediately after exposure, or up to twelve hours later. Usually, though, symptoms will present within four hours of exposure."

"That's good; a fairly narrow window," Lisbon said. "That should help us figure out how he managed to dose me."

"Never mind about that, what's the course of treatment? What's the cure?" Jane demanded.

"We need to prevent her from coming into any further contact with the source immediately."

"Yes, but surely there's something you can give her," Jane said impatiently.

Dr. Cavendish shook her head. "I can prescribe a painkiller for the headaches, of course, and some anti-nausea medication, which will help manage the worst effects of the symptoms she's been experiencing, but I'm afraid the only long term solution is to prevent further exposure."

Jane looked like he'd been physically struck. "But…there must be something you can do to make her better."

"This isn't like the movies, Mr. Jane," she said gently. "I'm afraid there's no antidote. But I don't want you to panic; if we can identify the source of the poison and make sure she doesn't come into contact with it again, Teresa should be right as rain in short order."

"Are there any long term effects?" Lisbon asked.

"If your exposure continues, there are a number of complications that could develop down the line, but at this point, I don't think you need to worry about that. If you can avoid further exposure, your symptoms should go away on their own in a few days."

"What happens if we can't figure out how he's doing it and she continues to absorb the poison?" Jane asked.

"If exposure continues over a prolonged period of time, I'm afraid the consequences could be very serious," Dr. Cavendish said, addressing Lisbon. "You could have seizures, lose muscle control, or slip into a coma. And of course, anything is toxic in high enough concentrations; if you absorbed the poison in a more concentrated dose, it could lead to cardiac arrest."

Lisbon shuddered. "Good thing we caught it when we did."

"Yes," Dr. Cavendish agreed. "You're very lucky. Have you ever heard the expression 'When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras?'"

"No." Lisbon said.

"It's kind of a slang for doctors," Dr. Cavendish explained. "It basically means, don't go out of your way to diagnose a rare disease when a common one explains the symptoms just as well. If you hear hoofbeats, the animal making the noise is more likely to be a horse than a zebra. In North America, anyway. In your case, however, the hoofbeats are a zebra."

"I'm not sure I'm quite following," Lisbon confessed.

"The primary means of diagnosing organophosphate poisoning is identifying the circumstances that might have led to exposure and pairing them with the resulting symptoms," Dr. Cavendish told them. "If you were a farm worker, or worked in a chemical plant, and complained of the symptoms you've been experiencing, I would have asked you about your level of exposure to pesticides immediately. But for someone with your job and lifestyle, it wouldn't have occurred to me that you would have had exposure to that kind of chemical agent."

Jane was thinking deeply about something. "What would have happened if she'd gone to her normal doctor and complained of the symptoms she's been having, without having any idea that she might have been poisoned?" he wanted to know.

She shrugged. "There are a hundred conditions that present with symptoms of headaches and nausea. If Teresa came to me complaining of these things without the additional context clue of possible poisoning, I don't think it would have occurred to me to test her for organophosphates. I would have kept trying out different diagnoses, different treatments, until we found something that fit, but to be honest, I can't say with certainty I would have discovered the correct answer in time."

"You're saying another doctor might not have ever figured out what was wrong with her until it was too late?"

"It's possible."

"That was his plan," Jane said softly. "That was what he wanted to happen all along."

"Well, we figured it out, so he's not going to get his wish," Lisbon said firmly. "Really, he should have killed me when he had the chance. I'm surprised at him-leaving me alive was downright sloppy."

Jane smiled without humor. "He underestimated you."

"Yes, he did," Lisbon agreed. "I, for one, intend to make him regret that mistake." She turned back to Dr. Cavendish. "So what do we do next?"

"You need to find the source of the poison," Dr. Cavendish said.

"How are we going to know for sure when we find it?" Lisbon asked.

Dr. Cavendish opened the tackle box and took out a small vial, a bottle of clear liquid, and a jar of cotton swabs. "I want you to take these things everywhere you go until you figure out what vehicle is being used to deliver the poison. If you see something you suspect could be carrying the poison, swab it with a cotton swab for residue. Pour about an ounce of liquid into the vial, and put the cotton swab in the vial. If the liquid in the vial turns blue, you've found your culprit. If it stays clear, you've got to keep looking."

"Is there anything else we should know?"

Dr. Cavendish shook her head. "I think that pretty much covers it."

"We won't take up any more of your time, then." Lisbon looked at Jane. "You ready to go?"

He nodded.

Lisbon stood up. "I can't thank you enough, Myra," she said, shaking the other woman's hand. "Sorry about all the cloak and dagger stuff."

Dr. Cavendish patted her hand. "Not at all, Teresa. Glad to be of assistance. I only wish the circumstances were better."

"Me, too."

"Come back and visit sometime once you've resolved this whole thing. Remember, if your symptoms get worse, you need to seek medical attention immediately." She looked at Jane. "I trust you'll see that she goes to the hospital straight away if there's any sign she's worsening."

"Don't worry, Doc," Jane said. "I'll be keeping a very close eye on her from here on out."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "For God's sake, Jane, you make it sound like I'm completely incapable of exercising common sense. How many times do I have to tell you I can take care of myself?"

"You always say that, but now that you've let yourself get poisoned. I'm no longer sure you can be trusted with such an important responsibility."

"_Let_ myself—"

"Obviously, I'm going to have to take over the duties of making sure you're looked after properly."

"Lord help me," Lisbon groaned, and escaped before he could expound any further on the subject.

Jane turned to the doctor and extended his hand. "Thank you, Dr. Cavendish."

"You're welcome, Mr. Jane." She looked after Lisbon. "I know she's a bit prickly, but don't let her put you off. Take good care of her."

"Believe me," he said. "I intend to."

Xxx

Since Lisbon had barely eaten anything all day and had thrown up what little she had eaten that morning, Jane informed her he wasn't going to take her back to Sacramento until she got something in her stomach. He took her to a little restaurant he knew and made sure she consumed her whole bowl of soup and two rolls while he brooded over his mushroom risotto.

Afterwards, in the car, they drove for several moments before Jane broke the silence. "I'm sorry."

"Good," Lisbon said, looking out the window. "You should be. I can't believe you tried to hypnotize Dr. Cavendish."

"Not about that," he said, exasperated.

She turned to look at him. "About what, then?"

"I'm sorry I let this happen to you," he said, shame-faced.

She sighed. "Jane, this isn't your fault."

"I should have noticed you were sick," he said.

"You did notice." She gave him a wry smile. "You brought me chicken soup, remember?"

"Chicken soup," he said bitterly. "Some tonic for organophosphate poisoning."

She shrugged. "It's the thought that counts."

"I should have realized what was going on," he insisted.

"As much as you like to act like you are, you're not omniscient, Jane. You couldn't have known."

"I knew he was after you," he said stubbornly. "I should have been on the lookout for something like this."

"Stop right there," she ordered him. "You are not allowed to blame yourself for this."

"But—"

"No," she said sharply. "You warned me he was going to come after me. You hung tin cans on my doorknob. You've done everything you could think of to protect me, even when I was fighting you every step of the way. There's nothing more you could have done. I am not going to permit you to wallow in guilt over this. In fact, let me set the record straight on one thing. Even if Red John does kill me—"

Jane shuddered.

"If he _does_ kill me," Lisbon persisted. "I want you to know that I would never blame you for something that he did to me. You are not responsible for that man's actions, Jane. So if I do die, you're not to spend the next ten years burying yourself in self-recrimination, you hear me?"

Jane looked away. "I hear you."

Lisbon looked straight ahead. "Good."

Jane started fidgeting again, which he'd been doing all afternoon and which was most unlike him. "How are you feeling?"

"Better. Grace was right, it does tend to be worse in the mornings."

"No, I mean about being poisoned in general."

"Oh." She contemplated this. "I suppose I haven't really processed it yet. It doesn't seem quite real. I mean, who actually gets poisoned these days? It's like I've been dropped into a bad Victorian murder mystery novel. In a way, I'm kind of relieved it isn't something more serious."

"What the hell do you mean 'something more serious?' A serial killer is poisoning you. How much more serious does it get?" Jane said disbelievingly.

"I don't know, at least it's not cancer or something like that."

His heart clenched at the thought. "Cancer doesn't target specific individuals with malicious intent."

She shrugged. "But with this, there's something we can do about it. Myra said I'll be fine as soon as we figure out how I'm being exposed and make sure I don't come into contact with the source again."

"You're not scared?"

"Sure, I guess," she said unconvincingly.

"You don't sound so sure about that."

"Like I said, I haven't really processed it yet. At the moment, mainly I'm just feeling annoyed at having to admit you were right about Red John coming after me," she said, her mouth turning downward in a slight pout.

He chuckled despite himself. "That's my Lisbon." Her pout grew more pronounced. Not for the first time, he wondered what it would be like to kiss it off her.

She looked at him. "You aren't going to start acting all weird now, are you?" she asked suspiciously.

He glanced back at her. "Acting all weird?"

"Yes, you know, doing that thing you've been doing," she said, gesturing vaguely. "Hovering, acting all possessive and stuff."

"I haven't been acting possessive," Jane said defensively. He considered his recent behavior. Okay, he might have been acting the tiniest bit possessive. But he could hardly help that, given everything that had been going on, could he?

Lisbon avoided his gaze. "Whatever. I just want things to go back to normal, okay? I don't want you treating me differently just because I've been, you know…"

"Poisoned," Jane finished for her. "Yes, God forbid I take any special measures to comfort and care for you now that I know for certain Red John is actively taking steps to kill you."

She scowled. "All I'm saying is, I don't want you treating me like I'm some kind of damsel in distress, all right?"

"Someone is trying to murder you," he pointed out. "I'd say that qualifies as distress of the highest order." He cast a sidelong look at her. "And you have to admit, you make a pretty enchanting damsel."

"_What_?" Lisbon spluttered.

He gestured at her. "Oh, come on. The luminous green eyes, the raven locks… classic damsel material. I grant you, in the old school fairy tales, you don't often come across damsels who pack their own heat, but as heroines go, I don't see how anyone could come up with a more appealing package. A woman of valor, with killer aim and a pure heart. A man couldn't ask for a better damsel to be tailor made for him."

"I thought it was men of valor who are more commonly valued in whole the fairy tale tradition."

"Meh," Jane said dismissively. "What did the Grimm brothers know? They were academics who probably never got laid in their lives."

Lisbon laughed in spite of herself. "You're a ridiculous man."

"That's why you love me," he said airily, turning his attention back to the road.

Lisbon looked back at the road, too, and took note of where they were. "Hey," she said suddenly, laying a hand on his sleeve. "Turn right up here, will you?"

"What? Lisbon, the onramp to get back to I-80 is straight in front of us. There's a great big sign less than two hundred yards away announcing that fact. Forget the poisoning, maybe I should have taken you to the eye doctor instead so you could get fitted for a pair of glasses." He paused, considering. "Actually, you'd look good in glasses, Lisbon. If that whole damsel thing doesn't work out for you, I think you could pull off that sexy librarian look very well."

"Seriously, Jane. Turn."

"Stern taskmaster by day, seductive temptress by night—"

"Oh, for God's sake, for once in your life, will you just listen to me? Turn right here."

He obeyed, turning the wheel sharply to make the turn just in time.

"Turn left at the next block," she instructed him.

"Why? Where are we going?"

She shook her head. "I'll tell you in a minute."

"What's going on?" He glanced in the rearview mirror. "Are we being followed?"

"No. Just—turn right after that gas station, okay? You'll see when we get there."

Jane followed her instructions, and fifteen minutes later they pulled up to a four-story walk up in Daly City.

She went inside and started climbing the stairs, leaving him no choice but to follow. She climbed straight to the top floor and down to the end of the hall. She knocked on the door of apartment 405. Jane, hovering by her elbow, reflected that he didn't like surprises nearly as much when he was on the receiving end of them. Especially when Lisbon's life was at stake.

A moment later, the door swung open, and Jane blinked.

Madeleine Hightower stood before them, her arms folded across her chest as she assessed them critically. "Hello, Teresa. Patrick. I don't suppose this is a social call?"


	29. Chapter 29

A/N: Thanks for all the lovely reviews for the last chapter! That was one of my favorite ones to write. To reward you for taking the time to send such kind feedback, I am posting a second chapter tonight. :)

xxxx

"I'm afraid not," Lisbon said. "Can we come in?"

Hightower stepped back and gestured for them to enter.

Once they were inside and Jane had gratefully accepted the offer of tea on behalf of both of them, the three of them settled on the battered sectional couch in the living room, Jane and Lisbon next to each other and Hightower diagonally across from them on the other section.

"How are you?" Lisbon asked Hightower. "It's been awhile since we've spoken."

"Can't complain," Hightower said. "We're finally getting settled in here, and I've got a good job."

"How are the kids?"

She smiled. "They're good. They're asleep now, or I'd have them come say hello."

"They're doing all right, though?"

"It's been an adjustment, but they're doing okay now. Mimi's in a ballet class she likes, and Will is on a soccer team, so they're making new friends, and they're in a good school."

She looked at Lisbon. "How about you? No offense, Teresa, but you don't look so good. Has this one finally worn down your last nerve?" she said, nodding to Jane.

"Red John is poisoning her," Jane informed her.

Hightower's eyes widened. "I see." She turned to Lisbon. "Is that why you're here? Do you need a safe place to hide? You're welcome to stay here if you like."

"Thank you for the offer, but no," Lisbon told her. "That's not why we came."

Hightower regarded her with her piercing gaze. "In that case, what can I do for you?"

"We'd like to talk to you about Red John," Lisbon said. "Jane mentioned something awhile back that I've been thinking about a lot, and I think you could shed some light on it."

"What's that?"

"Jane made the point that Red John seemed extraordinarily determined to find you. He went to great lengths to discredit you, and when that didn't work, expended a great deal of effort trying to kill you."

Hightower shrugged. "I guess he doesn't like to lose once he sets his sights on something."

"That's what I thought at first, too," Lisbon said. "But I'm not sure that quite explains his determination in your case. There have been other times we've foiled his plans where he's backed off as a result. If it ever looks like we're getting close, he usually cuts his losses and retreats for awhile. But he kept going after you even after Jane helped you escape. At first we thought he set you up just because you were a convenient scapegoat. But if that was the only reason for targeting you, why would he keep going after you once you'd fled the CBI? Pretty much everyone thought you were guilty of Johnson's murder at that point. Red John should have been content to let you disappear quietly."

"Maybe he just didn't want any loose ends."

"But continuing to pursue you so aggressively ultimately exposed him even more than the original frame up," Lisbon pointed out. "Can you think of any reason Red John would have wanted so badly to kill you, specifically?"

Hightower thought about this for a moment. "I'm sorry, I can't think of anything," she said. "I first came into contact with the Red John case when I hired on as division chief at the CBI, and even then I was on the periphery of the investigation. My main interaction with the case was discussing the case with you, Teresa, and reviewing your reports on it. My only connection to Red John was through my position at the CBI. I can't think of anything from my time there that stands out as a reason for him to want to come after me."

"What about O'Laughlin?" Lisbon asked. "Any connection to him?"

Hightower shook her head. "Just working with him in his role as FBI liaison."

"Todd Johnson has to be the connection, then," Jane said. "Red John framed you for his murder by making it known that you'd been involved with one of his victims, that police officer, Rance Howard. You know," he added helpfully. "Your lover."

Hightower glared at him. "I'm aware who Rance Howard is, thank you."

"Red John had Todd Johnson kill Howard for him, but we never knew why. Can you think of any connection Howard might have had to Red John?"

Hightower looked taken aback. "Not that I know of. I suppose it's possible, though."

"Can you tell us a little more about him?" Lisbon asked. "How did you know him?"

"We met when I was chief of police in Placerville."

"You were working on a case together?"

"Not exactly. He was an officer in another county, and our jurisdictions didn't really overlap."

"What did he want with you, then?"

"He was looking into a personal matter and wanted to look into our files. We hit it off and started seeing each other. We were together about six months."

"What kind of personal matter?" Jane pressed.

Hightower looked at him. "The death of his father, Kellan Howard."

"He suspected foul play?" Lisbon asked.

"I'm afraid there was no doubt about that. His father was murdered quite violently when he was a boy."

"They never caught the killer?" Jane asked, his mind already whirring. This was starting to be a familiar story.

"No. The case had been cold for many years before Rance came to talk to me about it." She smiled a little wryly. "I told him it was a fool's errand, but he didn't listen to me."

"Did he find anything in the files he asked to see?"

"Not really."

"What was he hoping to find there?"

"His father was a police officer, too. He used to work for the Placerville police department before the family moved to Sacramento. Rance thought maybe there was something that had happened when he was working there that led to his death. Someone who he put away who might have wanted revenge, that sort of thing. He thought he might be able to find evidence of that in the files."

"But you said he didn't find anything?"

"Not in the files, no. But he didn't give up. He went back to Sacramento and kept looking."

"Did he ever find anything?"

Hightower nodded. "He finally thought he was onto something right before he was killed."

"What was that?"

"He was convinced his father's death had something to do with a young woman named Janine Taylor who was stabbed to death in Sacramento back in 1969."

Lisbon frowned. "What gave him that idea?"

"It was this piece of evidence he came across in the course of his investigation. It had trace amounts of blood on it that didn't match his father's blood type. Rance was convinced it belonged to his father's killer, but he could never find anything to test it against."

"What does that have to do with some woman who was killed back in '69?"

"His father worked the case. Taylor was a working girl, killed in her apartment. Kellan was the first one on the scene, and ended up catching this guy Joseph Callahan and arresting him for the murder. Everyone figured it was a john that killed her, and Callahan was a known client of hers. Rance tracked Callahan down, thinking that maybe he might have been involved in Kellan's death as revenge or something, but Callahan was still in jail when Kellan was killed. But Callahan was all hot to talk anyway. He swore he was innocent, and that Kellan had framed him. Callahan said if he would just go check the evidence, now that it could be tested for DNA, he would be proven innocent after all these years. Rance dismissed it, of course, but he ran the DNA test anyway."

"And was Callahan cleared?"

"It ended up being a moot point, because there was no DNA evidence to be had. The only DNA found on the murder weapon belonged to Janine Taylor."

"So then where's the connection between her death and Howard's father?"

"Evidence found at Kellan's murder scene had DNA on it that shared genetic markers with Janine Taylor's DNA."

"What, like someone who was related to her?" Lisbon said, startled.

"Exactly. Rance did some digging and found out Janine Taylor had a son."

"A son?" Jane asked carefully. Lisbon reached out and grabbed his arm, and he could tell she was thinking the same thing he was.

"Yes. He would have been about eight years old when his mother was killed."

"Where was he when his mother died?"

"No one knows for sure. He disappeared for a few days right after it happened. The police found him hiding in an abandoned building a few streets away from where they lived. Some of the notes from the file imply the officers who found him thought that he might have seen something, but he was too traumatized to talk. They questioned him for a few days, but he refused to say a word. The authorities couldn't find any living relatives, and eventually he was bundled off to foster care."

Lisbon's grip on Jane's arm tightened. "What was the boy's name?"

Hightower looked at her blankly. "I have no idea. His name was suppressed in the file, presumably because he was a minor at the time."

"Do you know anything else about him?" Lisbon asked. "Do you know where he ended up in foster care?"

"No," Hightower said, staring at her. "Why would that matter?"

"Did Rance think Janine Taylor's son might have killed his father?"

"Rance didn't know what to think. He didn't even know if the DNA belonged to Taylor's son in the first place. He'd just found this connection was going to try to find him and see if he could shed any light on the situation."

"And Rance was killed shortly thereafter, is that correct?" Jane asked.

"Yes. Very shortly after he did the test on Janine Taylor's DNA, actually."

"What about the evidence?" Jane asked, his mind working rapidly. "You said Rance found a piece of evidence connected to his father's death. What was it?"

"It was this rusty old nail," Hightower told him. "Rance thought his father's killer used it to slit his throat. It had some of the killer's blood on it, too, which was how Rance was able to run the DNA test. Do you want to see it?"

Jane stared at her. "You have it here?"

"Yes. Rance gave it to me shortly before he died, asked me to hold onto it. He thought I might be able to pull some strings at the CBI to maybe run the DNA results against some of the secure databases the CBI has access to."

"And did you?"

"I did. It didn't turn up any matches, though. And then Rance was killed, so I hung onto it. Honestly, I didn't know what to do with it." She grimaced. "It's not the most romantic keepsake, but it was the only thing I had that belonged to him."

Jane swallowed. "I'd like to see it, if you don't mind."

"Sure." Hightower got up and disappeared into the back bedroom. She returned several moments later with a plastic evidence bag in hand which she handed to Jane.

Jane held it up to the light and he and Lisbon stared at it. A rusted nail with a jagged point, caked in crusted blood. "An iron nail," Jane commented.

"Cut iron," Lisbon breathed.

Hightower watched them warily. "You think this has something to do with why Red John had it in for me?"

Jane didn't take his eyes off the evidence bag. "I'm pretty sure it has everything to do with why Red John had it in for you."

He stood abruptly. "Lisbon, we should get going. It's late, and we've got a long drive ahead of us." He held up the evidence bag and addressed Hightower. "Can we take this?"

"I guess so," Hightower said. "If you think it can be useful to you. It's not doing anybody any good here."

"I think it will be very useful," Jane said.

Hightower sighed. "I can see you're not planning on explaining this to me. But if that really is the reason Red John decided to destroy my life, I'll probably be better off without it."

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I'd explain if I could. I don't think it's the best idea to tell you our theory until we have something a bit more solid, though. Right now, all we have is a lot of guesswork."

A corner of her mouth turned upward. "Guesswork. That's what you do, after all."

Jane smiled, remembering the reference. "Yes."

"All right. I'll leave you to your guesswork. But if you end up finding out your guesses are right and you finally close this case, promise you'll explain it all to me someday."

Jane shot her a grin as he pulled Lisbon up off the couch and herded her towards the door. "You can count on it."

Lisbon escaped his grasp and gave Hightower a quick hug. "Don't worry, I'll make sure he makes good on his promise."

Hightower smiled ruefully. "You always do."

"We'll come down here when it's over and tell you the whole story over a couple of glasses of wine," Lisbon assured her.

"Forget wine, we'll do it over a bottle of tequila," Hightower said. "Top shelf."

"If this pans out, I'll buy you both the finest tequila money can buy," Jane said fervently.

"It's a date," Hightower said.

"Make your list of your favorite tequilas now," Jane told her. "It may be sooner than you think."

Xxx

When they got back in the car, Lisbon was fairly buzzing with excitement. It seemed the adrenaline of catching a major break in the case was making her feel much better. "Oh, my God, Jane. Do you know what this means?"

"I know what I think it means. What do you think it means?"

"Red John had Todd Johnson kill Rance Howard to prevent him from looking into his father's death."

"That would be my guess," Jane agreed.

"Red John killed Kellan Howard and he knew he left DNA evidence behind. He must have found out Hightower ran the DNA through the CBI mainframe and that's when he decided to go after her."

"So it would seem."

"Red John is Janine Taylor's son."

"I'm inclined to think so, yes."

"So why do you think Red John killed Kellan Howard?"

"I know exactly why he killed him. Kellan Howard killed his mother. It's the only possible explanation."

"What about Callahan? He was convicted of Janine Taylor's murder."

"He was framed by Kellan Howard, just like Callahan said, to cover his own tracks."

"Okay, fine, then why would Kellan Howard kill Janine Taylor?"

"Because he was having an affair with her. He was a young police officer. He had a new family and a promising career ahead of him. He slept with a hooker, and then panicked for some reason; maybe the vice department was cracking down, or he was under scrutiny from internal affairs. Or maybe they just had an argument and she threatened to expose him. Whatever the reason, he panicked and killed her because he was afraid she might tell someone. Red John witnessed the murder, and he either ran away because he was afraid, or Kellan Howard threatened to kill him if he told anyone. When the police found him, he refused to talk because he knew it was one of them who killed his mother."

"Beginning his lifelong hatred of law enforcement," Lisbon realized.

"Exactly," Jane agreed. "He was too small and scared to do anything about it then, so he waited until he was a grown man. Then he tracked down Kellan Howard and made him pay for what he'd done. But he was still new to killing then—he underestimated Kellan Howard. He probably planned to stab him like Howard did his mother, but Howard managed to wound him. I bet Howard grabbed the nearest thing to hand to defend himself and managed to cut him with the end of the nail. Red John must have wrestled it away from him, and then used it to end the altercation."

"Why wouldn't he have taken the nail with him, then?" Lisbon wondered. "It seems like the sort of trophy Red John would have liked to keep."

"Who knows? If I'm right and he was still new to killing, maybe there was something else that didn't go according to plan—maybe he heard someone coming and ran for it without thinking things through. He might have just dropped it. He's very careful now, but presumably he had to learn to be so by learning from his mistakes. But there's no doubt that this was a hugely significant kill for him. That little rusty nail became a symbol of his triumph over his mother's killer. It's no wonder he chose iron as a theme for the names of his professional endeavors. It's a deeply personal symbol of power for him."

Lisbon punched him on the arm, which he knew was her way of expressing excitement. "It fits, Jane. It all fits."

He rubbed his arm surreptitiously. She hit really hard, even when she was doing so in an affectionate manner. "Yes. It certainly seems to tie neatly together with the other pieces of the puzzle we've managed to piece together."

"You don't seem that excited. Aren't you pleased?"

"Of course I'm pleased. This is a major breakthrough. I'm just thinking about what comes next," he told her. "We have a busy day tomorrow."

"Yeah. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on a copy of the police reports on the deaths of Janine Taylor and Kellan Howard. Then I'll see if we can't track down the birth certificate for Janine Taylor's son, see if we can get a name." She turned to him eagerly. "This could be it, Jane. This could be the break we've been waiting for. We could finally find out for sure who Red John is."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Lisbon," Jane said. "First things first."

"Jane, we're so close now. What could possibly take priority over this?"

"I don't know about you, Lisbon, but my number one priority is pretty clear right now."

"What's that?"

He looked at the road. "We have to find out how you're being poisoned and put a stop to it."


	30. Chapter 30

Jane showed up at Lisbon's apartment at an ungodly hour the next morning, insisting on testing all the beverages and every last article of food in her refrigerator for organophosphate residue before he would permit her to eat breakfast. When that effort yielded nothing, he went through all her bath products and makeup. After that, it was testing her sheets and laundry detergent. He even tested the vents to ensure that the poison hadn't been introduced via the central air unit. Lisbon was slightly disturbed by the number of different ways Jane could think of to poison her.

He went through the same process before he would let her get in her car, swabbing the door handles, the steering wheel, and the gear shift with the cotton swabs that Dr. Cavendish had given them. He helped her with the standard bug sweep, commenting that poisoning someone by leaving residue in less obvious places would be a rather ingenious method of transmitting the poison if the culprit knew of the bug checks. Lisbon just hoped the person who was actually responsible for poisoning her wasn't as creative as Jane.

When they got to the office, Jane enlisted the rest of the team to help with the task of identifying the source of the poison. They had been informed of Lisbon's diagnosis the previous night in the course of their usual check-ins, but hadn't been caught up yet on the revelations from their visit to Hightower. Lisbon gave them the salient points and was keen to discuss the new developments with the rest of the team, but they were all in agreement with Jane and didn't seem interested in talking about anything but how she might be being poisoned.

They huddled in the bullpen, discussing ways and means of poisoning their hapless team leader. Van Pelt kept patting Lisbon's arm absently, almost as though to reassure herself that Lisbon was still really there. Lisbon let her, thinking it must be making Van Pelt feel better somehow, but this uncharacteristically demonstrative gesture from Van Pelt made Lisbon notice the equally unusual behavior of the rest of the team. They were all standing unnaturally close to her and she realized they had unconsciously formed a protective circle around her. She was touched by the sentiment, but somewhat exasperated by the fact that its practical effect was to force her to crane her neck to look any of them in the eye. As the shortest person on the team—okay, as the shortest person in almost any group of people, anywhere—she was sensitive to having her personal space invaded because it meant other people loomed over her. She tried shifting away subtly so she could look at Rigsby without getting a crick in her neck, but it didn't work; the rest of the team merely followed and then closed ranks around her again. She gave it up and let them loom while they brainstormed possible methods to kill her.

Cho thought someone might have poisoned her water, but Van Pelt pointed out that Lisbon normally drank water out of the water bottles in the fridge supplied by the CBI, which any number of people might have ended up drinking. Rigsby came up with the idea that someone might have dusted her computer keyboard with poison. Jane tested all the theories they come up with, just in case, but so far nothing had panned out.

"I don't get it," Lisbon commented as she watched Jane check the bulletin board in the bullpen. "Why go to all this effort to poison me? Why not just kill me and have done with it?"

"Because of me," Jane said tightly. "He knows this is the best way to torture me. He already knows I don't deal with loss well. What could be a more elegant means of destroying me than putting me in a situation where I'm forced to watch you slowly waste away, knowing there's absolutely nothing that I can do about it? He's crafting a private little hell, tailor made for me."

Lisbon had no idea what to say to that.

"Jane, did you try the couch in Lisbon's office yet?" Rigsby called from the opposite side of the room.

"Good idea," Jane said. "I'll be right there."

But the couch was a bust, too. After several more unsuccessful efforts, Jane was getting visibly frustrated. "Think, people. What other ways could Red John have used to poison Lisbon?"

"You said organophosphate poisoning could have happened through inhalation," Cho said. "You think she might have breathed it in somewhere?"

"No," Jane said. "It would have to be airborne for her to have been able to been exposed through inhalation. He wouldn't have done it that way. Unless it was in her apartment or her car, it would be too hard to target her specifically."

"What about absorbing it through the skin?" Van Pelt asked. "He might have sneaked in here and gotten it on her skin like he did to Rebecca Anderson."

"No," Jane said again. "Lisbon doesn't like to be touched. If someone she didn't know well started brushing against her regularly all of a sudden, she would have noticed."

"Doesn't necessarily have to be touch from a person," Cho pointed out. "It could be residue on an object."

"Yes, but we've already tried most of the objects she comes into contact with on a daily basis, and we haven't found residue on any of them. It can't just be any old object, or there would be too great a risk that someone else might pick it up by accident, or that Lisbon wouldn't pick it up at all. Besides, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced he wouldn't have used an object. It's not…personal enough."

"Not personal enough?" Rigsby echoed.

"Yes. Poisoning is a very intimate way to kill someone. He'd want to have the opportunity to watch her absorb the poison, to take it into herself willingly without knowing what she was doing. That would appeal to his ironic sensibilities. Yes, I'm almost certain he would have chosen ingestion as the means of delivering the poison."

"Someone at the snack cart," Van Pelt suggested. "Lisbon goes up there pretty frequently when she forgets to eat lunch."

"A definite possibility," Jane agreed. "Although it doesn't explain why she would be sick more often in the morning; she usually only becomes aware of her stomach when she's literally about to faint from hunger, and that tends to happen more frequently in the late afternoon or evening." Then he stopped. "Wait. I know what it is. I can't believe I didn't think of it before—it's completely obvious how he's doing it." He went to the break room and everyone else followed. They watched him open the cupboard and pull out a white CBI mug. He held it aloft. "This is it. This is how he's poisoning her. Everyone who knows anything about Lisbon knows about her caffeine dependency. He's poisoning her coffee."

"Anybody could drink out of that cup," Lisbon pointed out. "Isn't that the point you were just making? He couldn't be certain that no one else would drink from it."

"Yes, he could," Van Pelt said. "Everybody knows that's your favorite mug. No one else uses it because they wouldn't want to make you mad if you couldn't find it."

"I would not get mad if someone used that mug," Lisbon protested. "It's not like it belongs to me. People are perfectly welcome to drink out of it whenever they want."

"Uh-huh," Cho said, in a tone that implied that he didn't believe her.

Rigsby raised his hand. "I wouldn't drink out of it," he volunteered.

"See?" Jane said. "People fear your wrath if they came between you and your coffee."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "You really think someone is poisoning my coffee?"

"Definitely."

"Well, go ahead and test it, then," she said, resigned.

Jane did so. The liquid in the vial remained clear. "Huh."

"Back to the drawing board, eh?" Lisbon sighed.

Jane didn't budge. He stood there, still staring at the vial. "This doesn't make sense. I was so sure it was the coffee."

"So we'll try something else."

"No. This has to be it," Jane said stubbornly. "If I were going to poison you, I would poison your coffee."

"Me, too," Cho said.

"Same," Van Pelt agreed.

"Definitely," Rigsby put in.

Lisbon looked at them, slightly disconcerted that everyone on her team had apparently considered on at least one occasion in the past what means they would employ to poison her. "I don't know what to tell you guys. The liquid stayed clear, so apparently Red John doesn't know or care about my love of coffee."

Jane shook his head. "No. Everyone knows the best way to poison you is through your coffee. Even Carmen knew it, remember?"

"I'm not likely to forget, thanks," Lisbon said sourly.

"He must have managed it some other way," Jane mused. He went through the kitchenette and tested the coffee pot, the creamer, the sugar, the coffee filters, and the coffee itself. He even tested the decaf, which everyone knew Lisbon wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. He looked at Lisbon. "We're missing something. Something about your habits. Tell me your daily routine again. Leave nothing out."

"I've already told you five times," Lisbon protested.

"Tell me again. You must have forgotten to mention something."

Lisbon rolled her eyes, but complied. "I told you. I get up, drink my coffee, eat breakfast, then go for a run or to the gym. Then I shower and get dressed and come to work. I'm usually here most of the day, unless I have to go into the field or I have a meeting with Bertram at the capitol or have to go to court or something. Then I go home, grab a bite to eat, and watch TV or read for awhile before getting ready for bed."

"Unless you get up late," Rigsby pointed out. "Then you stop for coffee on the way to work."

Lisbon frowned. "I guess. But that doesn't happen that often." Then she realized that wasn't strictly true, at least recently. Lately, she'd been staying up later than normal talking on the phone to Jane, and she'd been oversleeping in the morning more frequently as a result. She realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach that what had once been a rare indulgence had become more of a habit. Lately, she'd probably been stopping to grab coffee from her favorite coffee shop two or three times a week.

Rigsby shrugged. "Maybe not. But yesterday you brought us all muffins from Marie's, and Van Pelt said you got pretty sick after."

"You love Marie's," Jane said. "You always say they have the best coffee in the city. But you don't usually indulge yourself on the good stuff because you think it's too expensive to buy for yourself all the time."

"I—I guess I've started going there more often, lately," Lisbon said, still reeling from the implications of what they were suggesting.

Jane closed his eyes in frustration. "And you didn't think it was important to mention this?"

"You said to tell you my daily routine," Lisbon said defensively. "I don't go there every day."

"That makes sense," Cho said. "You haven't been sick every day. It's been off and on."

Lisbon swallowed. "You really think—"

"That someone at Marie's is poisoning you," Jane finished. "Yes. At this point, I'd say it's almost certain."


	31. Chapter 31

Lisbon wiped her palms on her jeans, feeling unaccountably nervous as she entered Marie's an hour later. Well, perhaps unaccountably was the wrong word. It was rather unnerving to walk into a place where you knew one of the occupants had been trying to kill you for the better part of several weeks, after all. She felt anxious, exposed. Jane had wanted to come with her, but she had refused, fearing he would make a scene once he figured out who the most likely suspect was and ruin the whole thing. Cho had offered to accompany her in his stead, but Lisbon believed they would have a better chance of drawing out the would-be killer if she went in alone. Jane, of course, hadn't liked that idea one bit, but the rest of the team had agreed to abide by her wishes. As a result, Rigsby had been charged with keeping Jane from barging into Marie's halfway through the operation, and Lisbon had entered the coffee shop alone.

She glanced around uneasily, trying to assess who in this charming café might want her dead.

Susan, the manager, had always been nice, but did her too-friendly smile conceal a sinister intent? That tall guy in the glasses had flirted with her the last time she was here, but maybe that had just been an excuse to get near enough to drop something in her drink.

"Hi, Teresa," Jason greeted her cheerfully as she approached the counter. He beamed at her. "What can I do for you today?"

She smiled back at him, grateful to see at least one friendly face in this place. "Hi, Jason. Just a coffee today."

"The usual?"

"Yeah, thanks," she said distractedly, still looking around for potential suspects. That woman with the baby was in here an awful lot, but surely if she was plotting to murder someone, she wouldn't bring the baby along, would she? The man with the beard who was always in here on his laptop—he was a much more likely candidate.

Jason whistled while he prepared her coffee. "Hey, Teresa, I finished that essay for the application to that internship you recommended me for. I was wondering if you'd mind reading it over for me before I submit it."

"Sure," she said absently. "I'd be happy to." God, this was impossible. There were over twenty people in here, over half of which she recognized as employees or regulars. Maybe she should have let Jane come along after all. He probably would have taken one look at this lot and deduced the identity of the guilty party based on the color of their shoelaces or something.

"Awesome. I'll email it to you later today, okay?"

Jason snapped the lid on her coffee and presented it to her with a flourish. "Here you go."

Lisbon stared at it. There it was. Her probably poisoned coffee. The would-be instrument of her death. Her eyes flicked up to look behind the counter, but Jason was the only one there. No one else had been within five feet of the cup he'd just handed to her during the whole time he'd been preparing it. She looked back at Jason, aghast.

"That'll be $4.37," he said cheerfully.

She handed the money over wordlessly, wondering if there was any way she could get reimbursed for poisoned beverages sustained in the line of duty. How would one go about filing a worker's compensation claim for such a thing?

Jason put the cash in the drawer and handed her a receipt and her change. "All right. You're all set."

Thanks didn't really seem appropriate under the circumstances. Her mind reeling, she took the coffee and left.

Shaken, she walked slowly back to the SUV where the rest of the team was waiting.

It couldn't be Jason. Jason was so young and sweet. He was on the debate team, for God's sake. He couldn't be in league with Red John. He _couldn't_ be.

She opened the car door and climbed into the front passenger seat. She handed the coffee to Cho in the driver's seat without a word.

"What's wrong?" Jane demanded from the seat behind her when he got a look at her face. "Did something happen?"

Lisbon shook her head, not wanting to put voice to her fears until they knew for sure that the coffee was indeed poisoned. Maybe they were wrong, she thought hopefully. Maybe this was all a mistake. No one at Marie's was poisoning her. They'd just have to look elsewhere. Maybe they'd overlooked something at her apartment. They needed to look harder, that was all.

Van Pelt did the honors this time. She dipped the cotton swab in the coffee, then dropped it into the waiting vial.

As they all watched, the liquid in the vial turned a brilliant indigo.

Lisbon turned her head away. Numb, she gave the order that needed to be made. She stared out the window, unseeing, as Cho and Rigsby got out of the car and went inside to make the arrest. She closed her eyes, conscious only of Jane's warm hand heavy on her shoulder.

Xxx

There was a bit of an altercation once they got back to the office and Jane realized Lisbon wasn't going to let him interrogate Jason until the boy's parents had been contacted.

"Lisbon! Precious time is ticking away," he protested after she caught him trying to sneak into the interrogation room and dragged him back to her office. "I'll be able to get way more out of him if he's alone."

"He's a minor. He has the right to have his parents present for the interrogation."

"He's talked to Red John, Lisbon. He could be the key to identifying him after all this time, and he's less than fifteen yards away from this office. Do you seriously want to wait to talk to him until after he's gone crying to mommy and lawyered up?"

She sighed. "He's just a kid, Jane."

"He's no innocent, Lisbon. He poisoned you. He's working for Red John. How can you protect him, under the circumstances?"

"I'm not protecting him. The law is protecting him."

"The law? Who cares about that at a time like this?" Jane said incredulously. "Your life is in danger!"

She scowled. "I care. The people of California care. And the DA is sure as hell going to care if we decide to charge a teenage boy with attempted murder."

"Well, I don't give a damn about the law. If he even looks sideways at you, I'm going to wring his scrawny neck."

"Are you listening to yourself? You're going to kill a seventeen year old boy for looking at me?"

"Legally, he'll be an adult in seven months."

"_Legally,_ that won't help your defense much."

"Okay, fine," he conceded. "I won't kill him. But you really ought to let me talk to him."

She glared at him. "Listen to me, Jane, because I'm only going to say this once: If you put one toe across the threshold of that interrogation room before I give you the okay, I will break your leg."

Jane strongly suspected she knew at least five ways to carry out this threat, thanks to her training sessions with Cho, so he decided it would probably be best not to test her willingness to do so. He sat down on the couch in a huff.

For once, she didn't attempt to distract herself with paperwork. Instead, she sat down on the couch next to him and closed her eyes. Her fingers found their way to the sleeve of his jacket, curling around the edge of the hem. Jane was surprised and a little moved that Lisbon was reaching out to him for reassurance like this.

Then he realized she was afraid he was going to try to sneak out while she wasn't looking and this was her way of making sure he couldn't slip away unnoticed.

He sulked on the couch for the next half hour, but he made no effort to escape her grasp.

Their détente was interrupted by Rigsby knocking lightly on the doorframe. "Uh, boss?"

Lisbon opened her eyes and looked at him. "Yeah?"

"The kid's mom is here."

Lisbon sighed. "All right. Thanks, Rigsby."

She got up and went towards the interrogation room. Jane and Rigsby followed. "You and Cho checked him for weapons?" she asked Rigsby brusquely. She had learned her lesson after the disastrous encounter with Maldonado.

Rigsby nodded. "He's clean."

Cho and Van Pelt were waiting for them outside the interrogation room. "What's the plan, boss?" Cho asked.

"I'll take point," Lisbon told him. "Jane and Cho, you're with me. Rigsby and Van Pelt, you guys can watch from the observation room, but keep an eye on the hall. No one but our team goes in or out of the interrogation room until the interview is over, okay?"

"Got it," Rigsby affirmed, and Van Pelt nodded.

"All right. Let's do it," Lisbon said, and entered the interrogation room.

Jane followed close behind her, his hand at the small of her back. Cho brought up the rear.

Jason and his mother were seated at the table. Jane and Lisbon took the two chairs opposite them. Cho took his position in the corner behind Lisbon and folded his arms across his chest.

Jason brightened when Lisbon walked in, but his mother, next to him, looked tense.

"Mrs. Finley," Lisbon greeted her. "My name is Teresa Lisbon. I'm the senior agent in charge of the Serious Crimes Unit here at the CBI. These are my colleagues, Patrick Jane and Kimball Cho."

"Call me Cathy," the other woman said distractedly, her eyes darting back and forth between Jane and Cho before settling on Lisbon again. "Can you tell me what this is all about?"

"I'm afraid Jason is in quite a bit of trouble," Lisbon said soberly.

"What kind of trouble?"

"Has Jason told you anything about why he's here?"

"No." She looked at her son, but Jason said nothing, just stared at Lisbon rather fixedly.

"He's been charged with a very serious crime," Lisbon told her.

Jane was getting a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, watching Jason follow Lisbon's every movement with his eyes. "Do you understand why you're here, Jason?" he asked.

Jason nodded. "Yes."

"And why's that?"

"To see Teresa," he answered easily, smiling at Lisbon.

"Excuse me?" Lisbon said, startled.

"I came here to see you," the boy repeated. "When your men asked me to come here with them, I asked them if you would be here, and they said you would be."

"You know you've been arrested, right?" Cho asked.

Jason looked at him. "Yes."

"Agents Cho and Rigsby read you your Miranda rights, didn't they?" Lisbon double-checked. "They explained the charges against you?"

"Yes."

"And do you understand your rights as they explained them to you?"

"Of course. I have the right to an attorney, blah, blah, blah," Jason said, rolling his eyes a little. "I have seen TV before. I know how it works." Then he did something very strange: he winked at Lisbon.

Lisbon drew back. "Jason, I'm concerned that you don't seem to appreciate how serious your situation is right now."

He smiled at her. "It's okay, Teresa. I understand what's going on here."

Jane was disturbed by the way the boy was looking at his partner. "What do you think is going on here, Jason?"

Jason looked at Jane, his lip curling slightly. "I'm hardly likely to tell _you_ that, am I?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jane asked, intrigued.

Jason shook his head and looked back at Lisbon. "Teresa, I know you had your men come get me so it wouldn't look suspicious, but you had to know I would have come willingly if you'd just asked. Surely there's no need for such pretenses now that I'm actually here. Why did you have to bring him in here?"

"What pretenses?" Lisbon said, confused.

Jason gestured to his surroundings. "This. The whole arrest. I know it was a trick so you'd have an excuse to bring me here."

"No trick," Cho said. "You've really been arrested."

"Why would I want an excuse to bring you to the CBI?" Lisbon asked, looking bewildered.

"So we could finally have some time to talk alone," Jason replied. He frowned. "I'm not sure why you called my mom, though."

"Why would you and Lisbon need to talk alone?" Jane asked him.

"None of your business," Jason said coldly.

"Can someone please explain to me what the hell is happening right now?" Jason's mother demanded.

Lisbon turned her attention to the woman on the other side of the table. "Mrs. Finley—"

"Cathy," the other woman said shortly.

"Cathy. Your son has been charged with attempted murder."

Jason's mother stared at her. "You're joking."

"I'm afraid not," Lisbon told her.

"That's crazy," Cathy said flatly. "There must be some mistake."

"There's no mistake," Jane told her. "Your son has been poisoning Agent Lisbon."

"What?" Jason said, sounding alarmed for the first time. "Poisoning?"

"Yes. That's what people call it when you put something in someone's food or drink that could kill them," Jane informed him.

"Teresa's been poisoned?" Jason said in disbelief.

"Yes."

Jason looked at Lisbon for confirmation. "Someone's been hurting you?" he demanded.

Off her startled nod, he slammed his hand against the table. "I'll kill him," he said savagely.

"Nice try," Cho said, unimpressed. "We know it was you."

"This is ridiculous," Cathy huffed. "My son hasn't poisoned anyone."

"I'm sorry, but we have compelling evidence that he has," Lisbon told her.

"This isn't just a witness interview? He's actually being charged?" Cathy asked.

"He has been charged with attempted murder," Lisbon repeated. "This is an official interrogation. Under the circumstances, I feel obliged to advise you to consider consulting with an attorney."

"I don't need a lawyer," Jason said. "I haven't done anything wrong. This is a mistake."

"No mistake," Cho said. "Someone's definitely been poisoning her."

"I'm sorry to hear that, of course, but what on earth makes you think Jason is the one who has been poisoning Agent Lisbon?" Cathy asked.

Jane produced the coffee cup that Lisbon had bought from Marie's earlier that morning. "Agent Lisbon has been ill for several weeks. Yesterday, she finally went to the doctor and the doctor informed her she has been suffering from organophosphate poisoning. This morning, Jason prepared this cup of coffee for her. It tested positive for organophosphates." He demonstrated, filling the vial once again, dipping the cotton swab into the coffee and then into the vial in turn. He set the vial on the table as it turned a dark blue. "I probably don't need to tell you this, Jason, chemistry whiz that you are, but organophosphates are poisonous to humans when ingested."

Jason and his mother stared at the vial, shocked.

"You think that's poison?" Jason said in disbelief.

"Yes. You've been putting it in her coffee for weeks."

Cathy turned to her son. "Is this true, Jason?" she said uncertainly.

"Of course not. That isn't poison! I would never poison Teresa," Jason said angrily. "What kind of man would do that to the woman he loves?"

There was a shocked silence.

Cho spoke first. "You're in love with Lisbon?"

"Of course," Jason said. He looked at Lisbon adoringly. "How could I not be?"

"Excuse me?" Lisbon spluttered.

"I'm in love with you," Jason said seriously. "Surely you know that by now."

Lisbon knew no such thing, but couldn't think of a reasonable response. She gaped at Jason in disbelief.

Jason's mom put a hand on his arm. "Jason, honey. Agent Lisbon is a very beautiful woman, and I can understand you having a little crush on her. But don't you think she's a little old for you?"

"That's just close-minded, old-fashioned thinking," Jason said dismissively. "True love is not bound by such antiquated restrictions."

"So you're saying you haven't put anything in Lisbon's coffee?" Jane asked.

"Well, I have been putting something in her coffee," Jason said blithely. "But it's not poison."

"Jason!" his mother said, aghast.

"It's totally harmless!" Jason insisted. "I told you, I would never hurt her."

"Except for making her sick for weeks," Cho commented her.

Jane looked at Jason intently. "If it wasn't poison you were putting in her drink, what was it?"

"It's a special chemical compound. But it's not poison. It wouldn't hurt anyone. Here, I'll show you."

"You have it with you?" Cho asked.

"Sure," Jason said. He pulled a small flask out of his pocket and handed it to Cho. "See? It's not poison."

Cho handed it to Jane, who poured a sample into his bottle of clear liquid. It turned blue. "Looks like poison to me."

"No! I told you, it's a special chemical compound. It hasn't even been released on the market yet."

"How often have you been putting it into her coffee?"

"Whenever I see her."

"How often is that?"

"A couple of mornings a week. I arranged my schedule at school to let me take more morning shifts so I'd be more likely to see her."

"Jason!" said his mother, scandalized. "You told me you wanted to take that afternoon shop class to broaden your horizons."

Cho looked at Jason, unblinking. "You said the stuff you've been putting in her coffee is a special chemical compound."

"Yes."

"What's the purpose of this special chemical compound?" Jane asked.

Jason blushed. "It's designed to lower a woman's inhibitions to make her more… receptive to a person she might not be attracted to at first glance."

"You're saying you thought you were giving her a love potion," Cho said flatly.

"Don't be ridiculous," Jason scoffed. "There's no such thing as a love potion."

"Aphrodisiac, then."

"Or a rufie," Jane suggested.

Jason looked outraged. "It's not a rufie! I would never put a rufie in a woman's drink. That's a despicable thing to do."

"Jason, why did you put anything into my drink at all?" Lisbon asked, upset. "Even if you didn't think it was going to hurt me, you should never have put something in my coffee without my knowledge."

Jason looked at Lisbon pleadingly. "I'm sorry. I would never hurt you, Teresa. Please believe that. It was just… this was the only way I could get you to look at me as more than just the kid who gives you coffee in the mornings."

"Yeah, that's working out real well for you," Cho commented. "Now she's looking at you as the kid who poisoned her coffee in the mornings."

"No. She knows I love her." Jason looked at Lisbon with a tender expression on his face. "What's more, she loves me, too."

Jason's mom looked at Lisbon suspiciously for evidence that she might have encouraged her son's misguided affections, but the look of horror on Lisbon's face was so convincing that it was enough to persuade her to abandon her any suspicions she may have been forming against Lisbon and focus on Jason instead. "Did Agent Lisbon say something that made you think she might return your feelings?"

"She didn't need to say anything," Jason said confidently. "I can see it in her face when she looks at me."

"Do you see it in her face now?" Jane asked curiously.

Jason studied Lisbon's face. "No. Right now she looks upset."

Lisbon smiled uncomfortably. "Jason, I'm sorry you've somehow gotten the wrong impression—"

"Wait. There it is!" Jason interrupted, gesturing wildly in Lisbon's direction. "You can see for yourselves she loves me. It's written all over her face."

Everyone looked at Lisbon, but to the unbiased eye, she looked more appalled than enamored.

Jane snapped his fingers. "I know what's going on here," he announced.

"Thank God," Lisbon muttered. "I was starting to think I'd fallen down the rabbit hole."

"Jason's been hypnotized," Jane told them.

"Hypnotized?" Cathy said blankly.

"Yes. He's under the influence of a post-hypnotic suggestion."

"But hypnotism isn't real, is it?" Cathy said uncertainly.

"It's real," Cho told her. "Jane here can do it. We had a case once where someone was hypnotized into carrying a body down the street thinking it was a bag of potatoes."

"My God," Cathy said, horrified. "And you think that's what is making Jason act like this?"

"It's certainly playing a part," Jane confirmed. "Our friend must have been following you, Lisbon. He learned about your caffeine dependency and realized Marie's was your favorite coffee place. He noticed Jason had a crush on you and decided to use that to his advantage. He hypnotized him into thinking the poison was a love potion and planted a suggestion that every time you smiled at him, it was evidence that you were in love with him, too."

"This is crazy," Jason said. "I haven't been hypnotized. You just don't understand what true love is when it's right in front of you."

"Uh-huh. Tell me, Jason. Where did you get the serum you've been putting in Lisbon's coffee?"

"My friend John gave it to me."

Lisbon, Jane, and Cho exchanged glances. "Your friend John," Lisbon repeated. "How did he end up giving you the serum in the first place?"

"He got it through his work. He works for the FDA, you see. He said it had passed all the clinical trials, but it wouldn't be released on the market for another couple of months. He knew I was interested in chemistry, so he gave me a sample and explained how it works."

"What did he say it did?" Jane asked.

"He said most people walk around with blinders on that prevent them from seeing the real truth. It's not their fault, it's just a product of how they were raised to conform to societal conventions. The serum lowers a person's inhibitions so they are can see beyond the bounds of those societal conventions. If a woman drinks it, she'll see past traditional factors that might have limited her view and open her mind to seeing the true nature of the man who gives it to her."

"Jason," his mother groaned, apparently in a state of disbelief about how gullible her son had proven to be. "You actually believed him?"

"Sure. He's a chemist. He did the tests on it himself."

"A chemical can't make a person fall in love with you," Cho told him.

"I know that," Jason said defensively. "It doesn't make a person fall in love with you. It just opens a person's mind to the possibility of falling in love with someone they might not normally look at twice."

"Like an older woman falling in love with a younger man?" Jane suggested.

"Exactly. The serum just helps a person allow for the possibility of love in unexpected places."

"You didn't feel guilty about trying to coerce a woman into loving you through chemical means?" Cho asked.

"I wasn't coercing anyone!"

Cho rolled his eyes. "Right. You were just opening her mind."

"So what was supposed to happen next?" Jane asked Jason. "Were you supposed to keep slipping the poison into Lisbon's coffee until one day she was too weak to defend herself, and then kidnap her and take her to your friend John?"

"Why would I take her to John?" Jason said blankly.

"You tell me."

"John doesn't have anything to do with this."

"I think he does. I want you to tell me about him."

"What about him?"

"Do you know what his last name is?" Jane asked.

"No."

"What about what he looks like?" Jane asked Jason. "Can you tell us that?"

Jason looked confused. "Look like?" he said uncertainly.

"Yes, can you describe him?"

"I dunno. He's just normal looking."

"Is he tall? Short? Fat? Thin? Young? Old?" Jane persisted.

Jason just looked at him blankly, as though he didn't understand the question.

"Or maybe you could draw us a picture?" Jane suggested hopefully.

Jason brightened. "Sure. I could do that."

"Wonderful," Jane said. "Cho, could you grab some paper and a pencil?"

"On it," Cho said, and exited the room.

He came back a minute later and handed Jason the pencil and paper. "Here you go."

Jason poised the pencil over the paper. "You just want a picture of his face?" he asked Jane.

"Yes, please. If you can manage it."

"I can do it," Jason said confidently. He drew the pencil smoothly across the surface of the paper, and in less than a moment, held up his drawing for their inspection.

It was a large, grinning smiley face.

Jane's face fell and Lisbon groaned. Even Cho looked disappointed.

Cathy looked at the drawing, unimpressed. "Boy, those art lessons were money well spent, weren't they?" she muttered.

"It's not his fault," Lisbon told her.

"Yes," Jane agreed. "The man who did this to your son would have taken every precaution against the possibility of discovery. When he hypnotized him, he would have placed this image in Jason's head for just this circumstance."

Cathy shook her head. "This is crazy."

Jane returned to more general questions. "How do you know this man?" he asked Jason.

"From the coffee shop."

"He's a regular?"

"I guess. I haven't seen him around much lately, though."

Of course not, Jane thought. Once he'd manipulated the boy into unwittingly poisoning Lisbon, he made himself scarce, minimizing the chance that the deed could be traced back to him. "When did you last see him?"

Jason thought. "A couple weeks ago."

"How long had he been going to the coffee shop before that?"

"I dunno. About a month, I'd say."

"How did the two of you become friends?"

"He was coming in pretty regularly for awhile after the morning rush. We got to talking a bit."

"What about?"

Jason blushed. "Well… women, mostly. You could say he was kind of unlucky in love."

"Is that so?" Jane murmured. Must have been his tendency to stab any potential girlfriends to death before they really got to know each other.

Jason nodded. "He said he's always been pretty shy around women."

"Yeah, I got that from the way he goes after them by breaking into their homes and torturing them to death," Cho muttered.

Jason, who hadn't heard this, continued. "I told him I understood. I told him there was this woman who came in to the shop sometimes, but I knew she was way out of my league. He said he used to feel like that, until he discovered the serum. The serum helped him overcome his shyness. He said the way women looked at him after they drank some of it made him feel like a king. He wasn't so shy anymore. Once the ice was broken, they started to see him for who he really was, and he was able to stop giving them the serum."

"I don't understand," Jane said. "Was that your plan, too? To stop giving Lisbon the serum once she saw who you really were?"

"That's right. I was going to stop giving it to her once she got used to the idea of caring for a younger man."

"So what were you waiting for?" Jane asked.

"What?"

"You said it was working. You said you could see it in her face how much she loved you."

Jason got a stubborn look in his eye. "She does love me."

"Then what were you waiting for? If it was working so well, why keep giving her the love potion?"

Jason hesitated. "I—I was waiting for a sign."

"What kind of sign?"

"I was waiting for her to confess her feelings to me. To tell me she wanted to be with me. Once she opened her mind to the possibility of a life with me, then I could stop giving it to her and let her fall in love with me for real."

"Ah. A tidy little syllogism."

"A what?"

"A syllogism. Your friend John tricked you, Jason. He told you it would be safe to stop giving Lisbon the serum once she confessed her feelings to you. But the thing is, he knew she was never going to tell you what you wanted to hear. Telling you to wait for that sign ensured you would continue to dose her with the serum indefinitely, constantly living in vain hope. He was going to let you poison her to death in a way that left him completely free and clear. He was going to walk away from the whole thing, while you'd be thrown in jail for the rest of your life for killing a state agent."

"No," Jason said, agitated. "He's my friend. He's got nothing to do with this. He gave me the serum, that's all."

"Jason, he told you that when Lisbon smiled at you, it was evidence that she was falling in love with you. But Lisbon smiles at all the people who work at Marie's—she was just being friendly. She isn't in love with you."

"You're a liar," Jason said angrily. "That's not true."

"You don't believe me? Fine. Will you believe it if she tells you herself?"

"She won't do it," Jason said with certainty. "She's in love with me."

Jane looked at Lisbon. "Lisbon? Is that right?"

Lisbon looked horribly uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, Jason, but what Jane is saying is true. I'm not in love with you."

"No. It's not true," Jason said, devastated. "This is a trick. He's tricking you."

His mom sighed. "Jason, honey, be reasonable. Why would Mr. Jane want to trick anyone?"

"Because he wants Teresa, too! This is all a trick so he can take her away from me and have her all to himself."

Jason grew so distraught that it was soon apparent that they weren't going to get anything more useful out of him. Deeply uncomfortable at the way he was staring at her, Lisbon finally called the interview to a close.

"Would you excuse us a moment?" she said to Cathy, avoiding Jason's gaze.

"Of course," Cathy said wearily.

"Is there anything we can get for you?"

She shook her head. "I'm afraid I don't much feel like coffee at the moment," she said wryly.

"I could get you some water," Lisbon offered.

"We're fine," Cathy assured her. "I think I could use a few minutes to talk to my son alone, actually."

"All right. We'll be back shortly," Lisbon told her.

Rigsby and Van Pelt met Jane, Lisbon, and Cho in the hall.

"Man," Rigsby commented. "I thought I had it bad when I was hypnotized."

"Yeah, all you did was beat up a suspect, kiss Van Pelt, and nearly throw Jane off a building," Cho said.

"At least he didn't try to drug anyone into falling in love with him," Jane pointed out.

"Yeah," Rigsby agreed. Then—"Wait, I kissed Van Pelt?"

"Yup," Cho confirmed.

"But that was before—"

"Yup."

Rigsby frowned. "I don't remember that."

"Not to worry, Rigsby, she enjoyed it," Jane informed him. "Even though she tried to pretend that she didn't. Isn't that right, Grace?"

Van Pelt hit him on the arm and shot him an annoyed look.

"God, what a mess," Lisbon groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Guess you've still got it, eh, boss?" Rigsby said. "Did you see the way that kid was looking at you? Like he was a starving man and you were the world's biggest sandwich."

"Thanks, Rigs, that's helpful," Lisbon said dryly.

"What are we going to do with him?" Van Pelt asked.

"We'll have to get him and his family set up with the witness protection program," Lisbon replied.

"Witness protection?" Jane repeated. "He poisoned you, Lisbon. He ought to be thrown in jail."

"He didn't mean to hurt me, Jane."

"He put a foreign substance into your coffee without your consent. He has some culpability in this."

Lisbon shook her head. "Older and wiser people than Jason have been manipulated into doing things they wouldn't normally do by Red John. I'm not going to ruin the poor kid's life because he let Red John delude him into thinking he was in love with me."

"Think the family will go for it?" Van Pelt asked. "I mean, witness protection is kind of a big deal. They'll have to leave their whole lives behind."

"They'll have to," Lisbon said. "Red John is sure to find out that his plan didn't work eventually. I can't imagine he'll let this failure pass without wanting his intended pawn to feel the full consequences of his disappointment. Jason won't be safe once Red John figures out he's talked to us."

"Forget Jason, what about you?" Jane said. "Once he realizes that Jason botched the poisoning effort, he's bound to come up with a plan to come after you in some other way."

"Jane's right, boss," Cho said. "You need to reconsider some of those protection measures we talked about when Jane first got the lamb."

Lisbon sighed. "Fine. If I agree to let someone on the team stay with me for the next few days, will that make you happy?"

"No," Jane said. He wouldn't be happy until the threat to Lisbon's life was removed once and for all, and there was only one way to make sure that happened. "But it's a start."

"Rigsby, get the U.S. Marshals on the phone and see if they can someone down here to talk to Jason's family," Lisbon instructed

"Will do, boss," Rigsby said.

Lisbon turned to Grace. "Van Pelt, take that flask to the lab and see if you can run down the source of the poison. It's a long shot, but if we can figure out where it's from, maybe we can figure out how Red John got his hands on it."

"No problem," Van Pelt said.

"I'm going to talk to Jason's mom and try to help her understand that her whole family has to leave their entire lives behind them and enter the witness protection program if they want to have any chance of keeping Jason alive," Lisbon continued. "Cho, I need you to go pick up the rest of Jason's family and bring them here to talk to the guys from WITSEC."

"Okay."

She looked at Jane. "Jane, I want you to sit with Jason and see if you can unhypnotize him."

"I don't know the trigger," Jane protested. "Breaking the power of Red John's hypnotic suggestion without knowing the trigger will be damn near impossible."

"I don't care," Lisbon said stubbornly. "You have to try."

Realizing Lisbon was likely to prove intractable on this point, Jane resigned himself to a wasted afternoon. "Very well."

On second thought, it was entirely possible that Red John had planted a secondary suggestion beneath the first that might prompt Jason to resort to physical violence against Lisbon if the first plot failed. Jane straightened. Perhaps breaking Red John's hold over Jason would be well worth the effort, after all.

Orders dispatched, Lisbon opened the door to the interrogation room and addressed Jason's mom, Jane at her elbow. "Cathy? Could you come with me? I'd like to talk to you in my office."

Cathy glanced uneasily at Jason, clearly reluctant to leave him alone in the state he was in.

"Jane's going to sit with Jason for awhile," Lisbon told her. "I think he might be able to help him."

"Help him?" Cathy said uncertainly.

"Jane has a very unique skill set," Lisbon informed her. "He's going to do everything he can to break the trance Jason is under."

"All right," Cathy said dubiously. "If you think it's best."

"I do."

Cathy patted Jason on the shoulder and followed Lisbon to her office, leaving Jason with Jane. Jason scowled at Jane, obviously less than pleased at being left in the charge of the man he perceived as the major threat against Lisbon's affections towards him.

Jane suppressed a sigh. This was going to be fun.

Xxx

Lisbon spent the rest of the day mired in WITSEC procedure with the Finley family and two federal marshals. Cho had returned with Jason's father and younger sister, and Lisbon watched their faces as it slowly dawned on them that they were going to have to leave behind everything that they knew if they wanted to keep Jason safe. Jason's mother and father were familiar with the Red John case from the papers. They were understandably horrified to learn their son had not only conversed with the notorious killer, but had been hypnotized and manipulated by him into poisoning someone.

Jane found her on her couch at the end of the day, drinking a glass of tequila and looking depressed.

"Hey," she said tiredly. "Want some?" She gestured to the bottle on her desk, indicating for him to help himself.

He sat down next to her and took the glass from her instead, taking a healthy swallow.

He was tired, too. He'd spent six hours with Jason before he'd finally found the trigger, and then another half hour with the kid helping him wrap his head around the fact that he really had been poisoning a woman he'd had a crush on for the better part of six months. After that, Jane returned Jason to his family, but he'd taken one look at the crowd in Lisbon's office and retreated to the safety of his attic until the marshals and everyone had left.

"Thank you for helping Jason," she said to him. "After you broke the trance, he seemed a lot more… sane."

"Meh. All in a day's work," he said with a lightheartedness he didn't really feel.

"What was the trigger, anyway?"

"It was the phrase 'Patrick Jane is a dishonest little worm,'" he informed her.

She stared at him. "How the hell did you figure that out?"

"Patience, and dumb luck."

"Seriously. How did you figure it out?"

Jane shrugged. "I tried every physical cue in the book and every poem William Blake ever wrote before it occurred to me to try some of the phrases from the note Red John left me after he killed Angela and Charlotte. Red John enjoys symbolism. In the event that his plan succeeded, there's a reasonable chance I would have eventually figured out that Jason was behind the poisoning. He would like the idea of reminding me that the death of yet another person I cared about could be laid at my feet."

Lisbon scowled. "Didn't we already talk about this? I don't want you blaming yourself for things that he's done."

"I can't help how he thinks. Besides, it got us to the end goal—Jason is unhypnotized and won't be trying to kill you anymore, so that's all that matters."

"So he's totally cured? He isn't convinced he has a crush on me anymore?"

Jane shook his head. "He's cured of the hypnotism. The crush pre-dated the hypnotism, so unhypnotizing him wouldn't have had any effect on that."

"I thought Red John was the one who convinced him he was in love with me."

"No. It was more subtle than that. It really was an impressive piece of work. Red John knew Jason had a crush on you. When he hypnotized him, he dialed up his craving for your attention a notch or two, just enough to get him to consider drastic means to obtain it. Then he reinforced the feeling by making Jason think that when you smiled at him, you were in love with him."

"Reinforced it?"

"Yes. After all, what is more attractive than someone falling in love with you? Think about it from Jason's perspective. Imagine this person you've been pining for ages suddenly starts giving you every indication they love you back. They smile when they see you and they look at you like you're the only person in the world. There's no feeling in the world headier than that."

"Except that it was all based on a lie made up by Red John," Lisbon reminded him.

"Yes," he agreed. "Except for that."

"I feel awful about it. If I'd known…"

"There's nothing you could have done, Lisbon. You had no way of knowing Red John was twisting Jason's perceptions to the extent that he was interpreting a polite smile as evidence that you were in love with him."

"I just can't help thinking I could have prevented it somehow, if I'd realized he was taking a thank you smile as encouragement of this ridiculous crush."

Jane shook his head. "Poor kid. One's first broken heart is never a pleasant experience, but to realize the other person never cared for you romantically at all is even worse. Plus, you know, the whole thing about realizing you've been inadvertently poisoning the object of your affection —I'm sure that's no picnic, either."

She shuddered. "God, what a disaster."

She looked miserable. Jane looked at her closely. She was feeling much better than yesterday, but the poison hadn't completely worked its way out of her system yet; she'd still suffered the lingering effects of a headache all day. The headache had doubtlessly been compounded by the stress of dealing with the teenage admirer who had been poisoning her and his family. Or possibly the strain of knowing for certain that Red John was actively plotting to kill her. Or, you know, all of the above.

Jane's heart went out to her. Lisbon was always the one who the rest of the team turned to when things were at their worst. For all of her tough, no nonsense exterior, Lisbon possessed a strange brand of nearly indefatigable optimism. Though she could be short-tempered and irritable when something annoyed her, she, more than anyone else on the team, remained steady and calm when the going got tough. If she did feel discouraged about a case, she rarely allowed anyone to see it. Least of all him – she always seemed to want to protect him from her darker moments. To see her visibly frustrated over what Red John had done to Jason and his family was actually physically painful to him. Between the two of them, she was the one who offered constant encouragement; he was the one who teetered dangerously on the brink of despair. Perhaps it was the knowledge of how very much he owed her in that regard or perhaps it was merely that he hated seeing her unhappy, but seeing her like this caused Jane to do something he very rarely did: he acted without thinking, and put his arm around her.

He wasn't sure which surprised him more: his own temerity, or the fact that Lisbon didn't pull away from him. Instead, she leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

She must be even more upset than he'd thought.

Poisoned and exhausted, her defenses were down. Perhaps another kind of man would have respected the boundaries that Lisbon normally maintained as her true wishes; he, Jane, intended to take full advantage of the breach in her defenses while he could. He shifted closer to her.

"Red John ruined his life, Jane," she said into his shoulder. "Jason was accepted to Stanford, did you know that? Now he won't be able to go. He and his whole family have to leave their lives behind, start new. And for what? Because he happened to be a convenient player in one of Red John's games. All these lives… Red John doesn't give a damn about any of it. It's all just a game to him."

Jane's arm tightened around her. "I know."

She raised a hand and covered her eyes. "And Jason's family… they had no idea what to make of this. Can you imagine being pulled out of your office in the middle of the day and being told your son is probably going to be murdered if you don't get out of town immediately?"

Jane stroked her hair and listened to her worry about Jason and his family. "They'll be all right, Lisbon," he said gently.

"They have to leave everything behind," she repeated. "Their home, their friends. Everything they've worked for their whole lives."

"Yes, but they have each other," he reminded her.

"I suppose," she sighed, letting her hand fall back to her side.

"It will be difficult. Especially for Jason, and especially at the beginning. But he's safe," he continued, his voice hypnotically soothing. "We figured it out in time. And I can guarantee you his family will be happier starting over with a clean slate with their family intact than staying in their twice-mortgaged home faced with the grief of losing their son to a killer."

"I guess so," she said. "It's just so unfair. Jason doesn't have anything to do with this case. He was just unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire. Now he's probably going to be screwed up for life just because he had a little crush on me."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Jane said lazily. He was enjoying the soft weight of Lisbon leaning against his side and the silk of her hair between his fingers. "You talked to him before he left, didn't you?"

"Yeah. It was one of the most awkward conversations I've ever had in my life."

"But you persisted, despite how uncomfortable you were. You spoke to him, reassured him. You made him feel better."

"How do you know what I said to him? You were hiding up in your attic."

"I know you," he said softly. "You forgave him for poisoning you, and you took the sting out of the rejection as best you could. You gave him whatever hope you could offer."

"Fat lot of good that will do him," she said darkly.

He sighed. "Look on the bright side, Lisbon."

"There's a bright side?"

"Sure."

"What's that?"

Jane shrugged. "At least we know he's got good taste. Sure, he'll probably be pretty neurotic with his first girlfriend or two, but eventually he'll end up with a warm, caring woman who sees the best in him despite his flaws."

"You think so?"

"I'm sure of it."

She sighed. "I hope you're right."

He kissed the top of her head. "I bet you a hundred dollars she'll have dark hair and green eyes," he said into her hair.

She pinched him and sat up, but her mouth curved up at the corners slightly as she did so, so he counted it as a win. "Shut up."

She stood and stretched. "I should probably go."

He watched her try to work the tension out of her neck, and thought about ways he could soothe the muscles there for her. "You want me to drive you home?"

She shook her head. "Cho's lurking around here somewhere. He's assigned himself guard duty and is planning to stay at my place tonight. He'll take me home."

"Okay."

She headed for the door. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah." He watched her go. "Hey, Lisbon?"

She turned in the doorway. "Yeah?"

"Sleep in tomorrow, okay?"

She blinked in surprise at the unexpected suggestion. "Why?"

"You've been poisoned and you had a hard day. You deserve the rest."

She thought about this. "I suppose it couldn't hurt to come in late for once."

"Exactly. Plus, you probably won't feel like drinking coffee tomorrow, so you'll need the extra sleep if you're going to be fit company for anyone," he reasoned. "Really, it's for the good of the team."

She made a face. "You're going to tell Cho to confiscate my alarm clock, aren't you?"

A brilliant smile broke out over his face. "Why, Lisbon, what an excellent suggestion. I'm so pleased you thought of it."

She grabbed a pen from the table by the door and threw it at him. "I expect you to have a strong cup of your blackest, most caffeinated tea ready for me when I come in."

"It will be here waiting for you," he promised.

She left, and he went into the kitchen, setting down the glass of tequila and rummaging around in the cupboard for the box of his favorite teas. He selected a fine English breakfast tea he'd found in a specialty shop in Old Town.

Well, it wasn't love potion, but it would do.


	32. Chapter 32

A few days later, Lisbon was as good as new and had thrown herself wholeheartedly back into the case. She'd been tirelessly running down leads, trying to track down anything she could on Janine Taylor and Kellan Howard. So far, however, she hadn't found anything solid.

"Dammit," she said, hanging up her phone. She looked over at Jane, who was reclining on her couch. "The State Records office has no birth certificate on file for a child born to Janine Taylor. No marriage certificate for Janine Taylor, either."

"Hm."

"So we still have no idea of what his name is, or what his father's name might have been."

"That's too bad."

"I bet he had Rebecca Anderson go into the system and erase any evidence of the birth certificate."

"Possible," Jane agreed.

"But then what about his social security card?" Lisbon mused aloud. "You need a social security card when you're applying for a driver's license, and you often need it when you get a job for your I-9 form. You know, employee eligibility forms. And you need a birth certificate to get a social security card."

"True," he said absently.

"Maybe he kept the social security card after he had Rebecca Anderson destroy the original record of the birth certificate?"

"Maybe."

"Do you think there's a way to track down someone's birth certificate from their social security card?"

"No idea."

"Course, that's kind of a moot point, since we have no way of finding the social security card without the birth certificate," she reflected.

"I suppose."

"Maybe I'll put Van Pelt on it. She might be able to figure out if there's some way of tracking down a social security card if you know the person's mother's name."

"Van Pelt certainly is very industrious with such things," Jane agreed.

Lisbon wasn't really listening. "Then again, he might have destroyed the social security card, too. Maybe he's been living under an assumed identity for so long he doesn't ever use his real name for anything."

"Or multiple identities," Jane put in.

"In which case it's going to be damn near impossible to find him," she groaned.

Jane shrugged. "Well, we won't be any further from finding him than we are now."

Lisbon got a stubborn set to her jaw. "No. He can't be that good. We have his mother's name. There has to be a way to track him down from that."

"We can only hope so," he said distractedly.

Lisbon looked back at him. "What's with you? You don't seem that interested in this whole Janine Taylor angle."

"I'm interested," he assured her.

"You've barely been paying attention to a word I've said."

"I'm listening. I'm just thinking about something."

"What's that?"

He shook his head. "I'll tell you in a minute. Please, carry on."

"I want to hear your take. What do you think about the mother?" she prompted him.

"I think she was depressed," Jane told her.

Lisbon blinked. "Based on what?"

"You know that movie Cho told us about?"

"What movie?" Lisbon said blankly.

"The Ingmar Bergman movie. 'Port of Call.' Made in 1948."

"What about it?"

"I watched it."

"You watched it? Where did you watch it? You don't even own a TV."

"I know a guy at the Tower Theater. He owed me a favor, so he agreed to play it for me."

"What kind of favor could you possibly do for someone who works at an old theater?"

"I told him how to get the woman of his dreams to go out with him."

"And it worked?"

"They've been happily married for three years now."

"So you cashed in the favor to watch 'Port of Call?'"

"Yup."

"When was this?"

"Not too long ago. I would have invited you, but I believe that was the day you told me you would shoot me if I darkened your doorstep one more time without permission."

Lisbon flushed, remembering losing her temper with him and his overprotectiveness one day when she'd found him lurking around her apartment shortly after he'd received the stuffed lamb, keeping watch for potential intruders. "Sorry about that. I guess I should have listened to you about that damn lamb after all. I know you were just trying to look out for me."

He raised his eyebrows. "Does that mean I'm re-invited to the home of Teresa Lisbon?"

"You always invite yourself," she reminded him. "I'm merely lifting the ban."

He looked pleased. "Excellent."

She tried to steer them back on course. "What does any of this have to do with some old movie?"

"The main character is depressed. She has a history of being indiscreet with men, and she's trying to reinvent herself, but mistakes from her past keep coming back to haunt her."

"This is the one who draws the smiley face on the mirror?"

"Yes."

"The upside down one. So it's really frowning?"

"Right."

"So what does the smiley face mean, in the movie?"

Jane shrugged. "It's really kind of an enigmatic moment in the film. It's not connected to anything else that happens. She just draws the face on the mirror and leaves the room."

"And that's it? It's never referred to again?"

"No."

"You think Red John saw this movie as a kid or something? Maybe around the time his mom died?"

"I don't think so. I'm reasonably certain that he would have seen it as an adult. Perhaps some time in his early twenties. I think that quiet, melancholy moment struck a chord with him. I think he connected to that moment in the film, that it reminded him of his mother in some way."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't, of course. It's just a guess."

She stared at him. "And because of this, you think Red John's mother was depressed?"

"Pretty much. It would make sense, don't you think? If his mother was mentally ill, there might have been times when she was unable to connect with him emotionally, times when she effectively abandoned him to fend for himself. It's likely that experience alone would have left him at least somewhat psychologically damaged to begin with. But to then lose his sole source of emotional support, however imperfect, to a violent death-" Jane shook his head. "It's no wonder he ended up a sociopath, really."

"How the hell could you possibly conclude all that from thirty seconds in a movie that was made over fifty years ago?"

He shrugged again. "It's just a feeling I have."

She shook her head. The way Jane's mind worked really was a complete mystery to her, even after all this time. "Okay. But until we come up with a scrap of evidence that could possibly confirm that theory, do you have any thoughts on the somewhat more immediate issue of determining Red John's identity?"

"As a matter of fact, I have."

"Great. Let's hear them. Do they have to do with his mom?"

"No."

"Kellan Howard?"

"No."

"What, then?"

"I've been thinking," he said slowly.

"Yes?"

"I think I should go back to San Angelo."

"San Angelo?" Lisbon repeated. "What for?"

"I want to talk to Drake Plaskett."

"Now?" she said incredulously.

"You seem to have the latest leads well in hand. Maybe it's time to circle back to some of the older ones." He stood up and stretched. "I should probably get on the road if I'm going to make it there by this afternoon."

Lisbon frowned. "Doesn't Drake live in a different town than his parents?"

"Yes, but he's back home visiting them this week."

"How do you know that?" she demanded.

"I called him and asked if I could come see him, and he said yes, but that if I wanted to do it this week, I would have to come to San Angelo because he was in town visiting his parents."

"Well, you sure kept that to yourself," she said, annoyed. "You weren't going to tell me?"

"I'm telling you now, aren't I?"

Lisbon didn't appear to be mollified by this. "I can't believe you're choosing now, of all times, to do this."

"Right now you're chasing a paper trail," Jane pointed out. "That's hardly one of my strong suits. You don't need me for that. Call me when you're ready to entrap someone."

"Still," she grumbled. "It's been ages since you discovered the connection between Drake and Hardy."

"I told you I needed to think about things before I'd be ready to go back there."

"What are you hoping to find out at this point?"

"I'm curious about Drake's relationship with Hardy. It still seems strange to me that he never picked up on Hardy's fixation on his little sister."

She shook her head. "All right. If you think it's worth driving up there, I'm not going to stop you." Lisbon was annoyed to find that after weeks of Jane's insufferable hovering, she found she wasn't wild about the idea of him being so far away, even for half a day. She was worried about letting him go anywhere alone.

"It shouldn't take long," he assured her. "I'll be back tonight."

She looked a little uncertain. "Do you want me to go with you?"

"No, you're needed here. I'll be fine. Divide and conquer, right?"

"Right," she echoed, and watched him go.

Xxx

"Mr. Jane." Noah Plaskett greeted him when he opened the door. He extended his hand. "Good to see you again."

Jane eyed the extended hand warily. "Thank you for having me," he said, shifting the box he held under one arm and shaking the proffered hand. "Pardon me for bringing up a sore spot, but to be honest, I wasn't expecting such a warm welcome. You and I didn't exactly get off on the right foot, if you recall."

"You saved my daughter," Noah said. "That's the only thing that matters, in my book. I never got a chance to thank you properly for that."

Jane shook his head. "No thanks necessary."

"Well, you have my thanks anyway. Please, come in."

Jane entered the house. "Is Maya around?"

"No, she has her own place in town. She's working tonight, so she won't be out here today."

"And Mrs. Plaskett?"

"She's at the store right now, but she'll be back shortly."

"I'm sorry to miss Maya. I'm afraid I won't have time to stop by and say hello, but I have something for her," Jane said, indicating the box he had in his hands. "Would you mind giving it to her for me?"

Noah looked at the box. "What is it?"

"It's a camera," Jane informed him. "There's a shop about halfway between here and Sacramento that sells vintage cameras. The guy who owns the place fixes them up himself. I thought Maya might like to have this one."

"That's very kind of you. She mentioned something about photography to her mother and me recently. She's thinking about going to school to study it."

"Good for her."

Noah took the box and set it on the hall table. "She told me she saw you and Agent Lisbon not too long ago."

"Yes, we were following up on some leads regarding the Red John case."

"I hope Agent Lisbon is doing well."

"She is." She was certainly doing a lot better now that she wasn't being poisoned anymore, anyway.

Noah led him into the living room. "Please give her my regards."

"I will." Jane looked around. "Is Drake here?"

"He's in the kitchen. Drake!" Noah called. "Mr. Jane is here."

Drake appeared in the doorway. "Hello." He, too, shook Jane's hand, and invited him into the living room.

The three men sat down on the same red and white gingham couch Jane and Lisbon had sat on about a hundred years ago when they had first come to the Plaskett home searching for clues about Maya's disappearance.

Drake looked at Jane expectantly. "What can I do for you, Mr. Jane?"

A glint on Drake's ring finger caught Jane's attention. "You're married now," he observed.

Drake smiled. "Yes. Two years now."

"Drake and his wife have a nine month old son," Noah informed Jane. "Ethan."

Jane smiled at Drake. "Congratulations."

"Thank you," Drake said. "Mirasol took him back east to visit her parents this week, so I thought I'd come down here and spend some time with my folks while they're out of town."

"Do you have children, Mr. Jane?" Noah asked.

Jane's smile faded. "I had a daughter. She and my wife were killed about ten years ago."

"An accident?"

"No. Red John killed them, just like Emma."

"I'm sorry," Noah said somberly. "I didn't know."

"You've been hunting him all this time?" Drake asked, fascinated.

"Yes. That's why I'm here, actually. We're taking a second look at all the leads in the case."

Noah frowned. "What could Drake possibly tell you about any of that?"

"I understand you were friends with Ted Hardy for awhile," Jane said to Drake. "I was hoping you could tell me a little about your relationship with him."

"Sure," Drake said, looking a little uncomfortable. "We were friends."

"The two of you were close?"

"Yeah, I guess. We hung out a lot."

"What did you do together?"

"We played basketball sometimes. Or played Call of Duty on the computer. Our favorite thing to do was to go out hunting."

"Did you spend time with any of his other friends?"

"No. He had his friends at the station, but I never hung out with that group. It was always just me and him."

"Did you ever meet his family?"

"His family?"

"Yes, did he ever talk to you about his dad?"

"No. He never talked about his parents. He talked about his uncle sometimes, though."

Jane frowned. "Did he?"

"Yeah. He wanted me to meet him, actually. We were supposed to go up to his cabin in Redding for a weekend sometime."

"You never went?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"We had an argument. After that, we didn't really see each other anymore."

"When was that?"

Drake thought. "About a year before Emma was killed, I'd say."

"That would have been a few months before Hardy staged the break in to plant the surveillance equipment in Maya and Emma's room, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"What was the fight about?"

"It's… it's kind of hard to explain."

"What do you mean?"

Drake shifted uncomfortably. "I'd really rather not talk about it, if you don't mind."

"Please. I know it may be difficult, but it could be important."

Drake looked at him unhappily. "You really think it could help you find the man who killed Emma?"

"I don't know," Jane admitted. "It's a long shot. But at this point, I'm pretty much willing to take just about any shot I can get."

Drake sighed. "All right."

Jane waited, but he didn't continue. Drake glanced at his father and looked away.

Jane turned to Noah smoothly. "Mr. Plaskett, would you mind excusing us for a moment? I think Drake might be able to speak more easily if he doesn't have to worry about your reaction to what he's about to tell me."

Noah looked like he was about to object, but after a look at his son's face, he conceded. "Very well," he said, disgruntled.

He stood, hesitated, and patted Drake on the shoulder awkwardly. "I'll be in the other room if you need me," he said gruffly.

Drake attempted a smile, but didn't quite manage it. "Thanks, Dad," he said, avoiding his father's gaze.

Noah left the room, and Jane turned back to Drake. "So how did the argument start?"

Drake sighed again. "Ted invited me to his place one night. Said he had something to show me, but wouldn't tell me what. So I went over to his apartment."

"And?"

"He seemed excited about something, but like he was trying not to show it, you know? It was weird."

"Go on."

"First thing he does is offer me a beer. I said no because I was driving, and he got all flustered. He gave me a hard time about it. Told me to lighten up and stop being such a prissy son of a bitch. Then when he saw I was getting annoyed, all of a sudden he started being really nice again. He apologized, and told me he wanted to show me something."

"Show you what?"

"That's what I said. He didn't really answer, just gestured for me to follow him into the guest room."

"What was in there?"

"Not that much, really. Normally he used it as a game room, but he'd taken a lot of the furniture out and he'd covered the walls in red. He'd draped the room in red cloth from floor to ceiling. He called it his Red Room."

"His Red Room?"

"Right. He seemed pretty proud of it. He asked me how I liked it."

"What did you say?"

"I asked him if it was too late to get the money back from his decorator."

"Bet he didn't like that," Jane commented.

Drake shook his head. "Have you ever been in a room that's entirely red? I mean completely red. No white or anything. It does strange things to your mind."

"Like what?" Jane asked, interested.

Drake looked uncomfortable. "I'm not sure how to describe it. It's like it makes you feel like you want to either have sex or kill someone, one or the other."

"Sounds intense."

"It was. He'd even covered the windows with the red cloth, so the room wasn't even getting any normal light. He just had a few candles around. To be honest, the effect was pretty creepy."

"What else was in the room?"

"Two chairs, a table, and a projector."

Jane frowned. "A projector?"

"Yeah. Like for a slideshow."

"Was that what he wanted to show you in there? A slideshow?"

"Sort of. There was music playing—Bach, I think—and he asked me if I liked the music. Then he started talking to me in this real soft voice. Like I was his pet or something and he was trying to calm me down. It was almost like he was trying to put me in a trance or something. I was pretty weirded out by this point- I had no idea where this whole thing was going. I decided to play along for the moment, at least until I could figure out what his game was. He told me to sit down, so I took one of the chairs. He made me stare into the flame of one of the candles he had in there. He kept repeating the same words."

"What was he saying?"

"He was saying he had the key. The key to my dreams. He kept repeating it, over and over. The key to my dreams. All I had to do was take it. If I would just take the key to my dreams, I would have everything I ever wanted. It was only after he'd been talking to me like that for maybe ten, fifteen minutes that he turned on the projector."

"What was on the projector?"

Drake shifted a little in his seat. "A bunch of photographs."

"What kind of photographs?"

He sighed. "Look, Ted knew me pretty well. I confided in him. He knew things about me that no one else did."

"Such as?"

"He knew the thing I wanted most in the world was to be an airplane pilot. To be able to lift off the ground and leave everything behind while you soared among the clouds."

"What else?"

"Nothing very interesting to anyone but me," he said bitterly. "He knew I'd had a thing for this girl Rose Barclay forever. She was smart, beautiful, sweet. We were in high school together, but I was a couple years older than her. She got a job as a teaching assistant at the elementary school here in town so she could save up for college."

"Let me guess—the slideshow included photographs of Rose Barclay."

"Yes. And of airplanes and pilots." He hesitated. "But there were also other ones."

"Other photographs?"

"Yeah."

"Of what?"

Drake looked conflicted, as though he wasn't sure he wanted to share this detail. "Of women."

"Women other than Rose Barclay?"

"Yes. Dead women," Drake said uncomfortably. "Women who'd been cut. Stabbed. Women who looked like they'd bled to death."

"What was your reaction to all this?"

"I was angry."

"Why were you so angry?" Jane asked.

Drake looked angry now, remembering. "Because I didn't appreciate being the butt of an elaborate practical joke!"

"A practical joke?"

"Yeah. I'd been through hazing in my fraternity in college, but come on. The guy was almost thirty, for God's sake. He was too old to be pulling that kind of crap. Plus, what was it an initiation for? Hanging out with his dumb cop buddies? No, thank you. I wasn't interested. And I was pissed as hell about the pictures. Was he trying to shock me with photographs he'd gotten from crime scenes? If so, it didn't work. I was disgusted that he'd taken them from the police station for some ridiculous practical joke he and his friends were playing on me. And the ones of the airplanes… those were just cruel."

"How so?"

Drake touched his chest. "I have a pacemaker," he said flatly. "I was born with a congenital heart defect. I had open heart surgery when I was five, and I'll have a pacemaker the rest of my life. Ted knew that—he'd seen the scar. He knew damn well that I'd never meet the physical requirements to be a pilot, not with this piece of machinery in my chest."

"What about the ones of Rose?"

Drake looked away. "The pictures of Rose—they were really intimate. Pictures inside her room, of her sleeping, getting undressed… those were the worst."

Jane frowned. "How did he get them?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Drake said scornfully. "He knew I was in love with her, and he seduced her just to spite me!"

Jane thought about this. "In the pictures, was Rose ever looking at the camera?"

"No, I guess not," Drake said, frowning. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Jane sat back. "He didn't seduce her. He was spying on her, just like he did to Maya and Emma. He had a surveillance camera in her room."

Drake looked outraged. "Are you serious?"

"Perfectly. The pictures were entirely for your benefit—he only took them so he could have them for this little slideshow he put on for you. And he may have known about the pacemaker, but he didn't know the FAA wouldn't have granted you a pilot's license because of it. He thought he was showing you your heart's desire."

"Be that as it may, I still didn't appreciate him going to such extreme lengths to have a joke at my expense," Drake sniffed.

"It wasn't a joke," Jane informed him. "It was a test. One I'm pleased to note that you failed spectacularly."

Drake gaped at him. "A test? What kind of test?"

"Those pictures of the women who'd been stabbed—they weren't random crime scene photos that he swiped from the police station. They were pictures of Red John's victims. When he put those photos in with the ones of the planes and of Rose Barclay, he was trying to see how you'd react to the idea of going to extreme lengths to get what you wanted in life. If you'd be willing to sacrifice for it. He wasn't making fun of you. He was trying to recruit you."

"Recruit me for what?" Drake said blankly.

"Recruit you to be one of Red John's disciples, like him."

"He was trying to get me to join a serial killer?" Drake said, aghast.

"In a nutshell, yes. You weren't so far off when you said it was an initiation—but it wasn't to the cool kids' clubhouse—it was to a very exclusive, very dangerous secret society. More of a cult, really."

"Why would he think I would ever join that man?" Drake said, horrified. "Even before he killed my sister, I would never want to be part of anything that did those horrible things to women."

"He was grooming you," Jane said. "He'd spent a lot of time with you over the years, and he wanted you to be part of a club he believed made you special, elevated you above the common man. To him, this was like letting you in on the best secret in the world."

"What happened then?"

"Nothing. I left, and Ted went to Redding without me the next day."

"You were supposed to go to Redding with him that weekend?"

"Yeah. I don't think it was a very good trip, though. He came back with a black eye."

Jane looked at him sharply. "Did he say what it was from?"

"No. I knew about the black eye because I still saw him around town, but I never talked to him about it. I didn't want anything to do with him after the stunt he'd pulled on me. I barely ever spoke to him after that."

"You never told your family about what happened?"

"No. Obviously they noticed I wasn't spending time with him anymore, but I didn't tell them the details. At the time, I was convinced he was laughing about the whole thing with his buddies behind my back. I didn't want my family to know what a fool he'd made of me."

Noah re-appeared in the doorway. "Everything all right in here?"

Drake smiled tightly. "Everything's fine, Dad."

Noah watched his son. "Did you get everything you needed, Mr. Jane?"

"Yes, we're finished," Jane told him. "Drake has been very helpful."

Noah nodded. "Drake, your mother's home from the store," he informed his son. "Will you help her bring in the groceries?"

"Sure, Dad," Drake said, looking relieved to escape the conversation.

He got up and went into the kitchen to help his mother, leaving Jane and Noah alone in the living room.

"He's a good kid," Jane commented.

"Yes," Noah acknowledged. "We've had our differences over the years, but ever since Ethan was born, it's somehow been easier to overcome them. For both of us."

"A new child can be a wonderful binding agent in a troubled family," Jane agreed.

"I suppose we are that," Noah said with a frown.

"You should be very proud of Drake," Jane told him.

"I am," Noah said, a little defensively.

Jane shrugged. "All right. I'm not too sure he knows that, though."

Noah regarded Jane with an expression that was half resentful, half curious. "What did he tell you?"

"He told me about a falling out he had with Ted Hardy that ended their friendship."

"I gathered that, thanks," Noah said, annoyed. "I meant, what was the argument about?"

"It's not important. It's the result of the argument that is important in this case."

Noah scowled. "What was the result of the argument, then?"

"The result of the argument was that your son had a very lucky escape."

"Escape from what?"

"He didn't know it at the time, but Ted Hardy was trying to convince him to join Red John. And if your son was a different kind of person, it might have worked."

"Join Red John? Join the man who killed my daughter?" Noah said angrily.

"Yes."

Noah sat down heavily on the couch and stared at his hands. "Was he trying to take all my children from me?" he said morosely.

Jane frowned, but didn't answer. He stood up and wandered over to the fireplace, studying the pictures on the mantelpiece. He could tell Noah Plaskett was eager to see him on his way. He'd probably already learned everything he could from Drake at this point, but he found he wasn't quite ready to leave yet. There was something bothering him, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. He looked at a wedding picture of a handsome young Noah with a beaming young Arden on his arm. "You look very happy in this photograph," he commented.

Noah looked up. "What?"

Jane nodded to the photograph. "Your wedding photograph. You both look very happy."

"We were," Noah said. "Our marriage hasn't always been the smoothest, but it was still the best decision I ever made." He shook his head. "Sometimes I don't have the faintest idea why she ever agreed to go along with it."

"I know what you mean," Jane said, thinking of his own wife. And Lisbon. She wasn't married to him, of course, but in his darker moments, he often wondered why she put up with him at all.

That line of thought was too depressing to bear thinking about, so he moved on to the next picture on the mantelpiece to distract himself. A picture of Emma and Maya with their arms around each other. They must have been about six years old at the time, grinning identical toothless grins at the camera. Next to them, there was a school photograph of Drake when he was about ten years old, looking solemn in a plaid button down shirt. Poor Drake. Jane could see the loneliness surrounding him even then. It must have been awful for him to lose Hardy as a friend, even if he was the one who ended the relationship. He'd inherited his father's pride and wouldn't stand being made to appear a fool. That pride might have been what saved him, in the end, but his salvation had still come at a terrible cost.

It was fine now, though, he reassured himself. Drake had a wife and child who loved him. He seemed happier than he'd ever been. Red John had lost that particular round.

He moved to the next photograph, an older picture of two young men in army fatigues, smoking cigarettes in a place that looked dusty and hot. "I didn't know you were in the army," Jane said idly, looking back at Noah. Noah must have been about thirty in the photograph. The man next to him looked younger, perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five.

"Eight years with the Army Corps of Engineers," Noah confirmed.

Jane had forgotten that Noah was an architect. "Any interesting projects?"

"Built a lot of schools and hospitals," Noah said with a shrug. "When I returned to civilian life, I found I preferred designing single family homes. I can't deny having that experience with the army was a huge help when I started my own business, though."

Jane looked back at the photograph. "Who's this in the picture with you? Looks like he was a good friend."

"That's Tom Cassidy," Noah informed him. "And yes, he was a good friend."

Jane stared at him. "Tom Cassidy? The man who was sheriff here before Hardy?"

"That's right," Noah said with a frown. "I didn't know you'd ever met him."

Jane shook his head. "I didn't. One of Hardy's colleagues mentioned him to me. Did you two grow up together?"

"No, we met in the army."

"What brought him out here, then?" Jane asked curiously. "No offense, but San Angelo isn't exactly a bustling metropolis."

Noah shrugged. "After he was released from the army, he was having trouble getting a job. He wrote to me and asked if I might be able to help him. I pulled a few strings, got him on the police force here. He became sheriff about ten years later."

Jane frowned. "Why was he having trouble getting a job? Don't veterans have preferential hiring status?"

"Yes, but only if they are honorably discharged," Noah said.

Jane was surprised. "Cassidy was dishonorably discharged?"

"Not exactly. He received what's called an 'other than honorable' discharge."

"What exactly does that mean? I've never heard of it."

"Similar concept to a dishonorable charge, but less severe. It's an administrative action for circumstances when a member of the service is deemed to have behaved in a way that does not meet the standard of conduct expected by the military."

"Why did the army kick him out?"

"It's a long story," Noah said in a tone meant to discourage further inquiry.

Naturally, Jane ignored this. "I'd like to hear it, if you don't mind."

Noah sighed. "I was on assignment in this godforsaken stretch of desert when a local woman was killed. She was murdered quite violently. It caused quite a stir. Her family was convinced one of the men from our camp killed her. I'm sure you can imagine what a nightmare that was for the army. It was close to causing an international incident, let me tell you. The army was on its back foot for quite some time, trying to figure out what had happened."

"What did happen?"

"The girl's brother accused a young man in our unit of the crime. The brother was quite upset about it. He said he'd seen the man in town, watching his sister when he was off duty."

"Did you know the man in question?"

"I knew him," Noah said, his voice thick with disgust. "He was a kid, only twenty years old. A hotshot who'd graduated from Stanford at the age of 19 with a degree in civil engineering."

"I take it you didn't get along with him."

"I had to work with him fairly closely on the project we were on. He was the chief engineer. I got to know him a little, but I never liked him much."

"He was made chief engineer when he was only twenty years old?"

Noah nodded. "He was a genius at engineering. There's no doubt about that. He'd designed the plans for his part of the project in record time, and he'd come up with some pretty innovative ideas that were going to save the army a fair amount of money. The higher ups were very impressed with him."

"But not you."

"Like I said, he was a great engineer. But he was arrogant. Too enamored of his own intelligence to bother with common decency towards us lesser mortals."

"So he wasn't popular in the unit?"

Noah's mouth was drawn in a tight line. "You live in close quarters in the army. It's hard not to develop camaraderie with a group of men you spend twenty four hours a day with. Don't get me wrong, he could be charming when he wanted to be. It was just that most of the time, he didn't bother. He only turned it on when he wanted something. The officers liked him well enough, but I don't think there was a single man in the unit who would have called him his friend, and that's saying something."

"What was his connection with Cassidy?"

"When the girl's brother accused a member of the U.S. military of killing his sister, a full investigation was launched. Cassidy was one of the men on sentry duty the night the girl was killed, and he was called in for questioning. He told the investigating tribunal that he'd seen this man leaving camp after hours on the night in question, heading towards town, and that he'd come back three hours later. Cassidy informed them that he had a disheveled appearance when he returned, and that he had a scratch on his neck, consistent with one who had been in a physical altercation of some kind."

"Sounds suspicious."

"Exactly. And it got worse. The next day, the guy came to Cassidy and asked him to say he hadn't seen him that night. Cassidy was wary, naturally, and reported this incident to the tribunal."

"What happened next?"

"The man in question got very angry at Cassidy. He told Cassidy he would pay for betraying him. Like Cassidy owed him a damn thing," Noah snorted. "I never could figure out why he asked Cassidy to lie in the first place. They weren't friends, and it turned out he had an airtight alibi for the whole thing, so why bother?"

"He had an alibi? What was it?"

"There was footage of the guy at the project site during the time frame that Cassidy had said he was out of camp. It turned out he was working late and never went out of camp at all that night."

"How did you know the footage wasn't faked?" Jane wanted to know

"Faked?"

"Yes, how do you know it wasn't footage of someone else? Or that it was of him, but taken at a time other than when the murder happened?"

"All the tapes back then were time-stamped, and his face was clearly visible in the footage. Security cameras recorded the date and time along with the footage."

"Hm. What was Cassidy's reaction to the whole thing? Did he take the threats seriously?"

"He seemed uneasy about the whole thing when he told me about it, but I told him not to worry about it. The kid was young and impetuous—he was blowing off steam. No way was he going to follow through on any of the nonsense he was shouting about. Even if he'd had the guts to do it, I figured he was too smart to come after Cassidy when it would have been so easy to trace any kind of retribution back to him." He shook his head. "Turns out I was only half right about that."

"What do you mean?"

"A few days after the girl was killed, the girl's brother hanged himself," Noah told Jane. "He left a note that stated that he was the one who killed his sister in the first place. Given that, and the security footage, the military dropped the investigation into this man I'm telling you about. Everyone figured that was the end of it, but this guy, he was still pissed as hell at Cassidy. Once he was cleared of the murder, he turned around and insisted that Cassidy be discharged for conduct unbecoming to a member of the United States military. He said that Cassidy purposely made up the story about seeing him leave camp that night to slander his name and ruin his career. He made a huge fuss about it, and the investigators into the incident were forced to hold a hearing on the matter."

"And Cassidy was discharged as a result," Jane concluded. He thought for a moment. "What was your role in all this?"

"My role?"

"Yes. You must have had some part in it."

Noah shrugged. "I didn't have much to do with any of it. I spoke on Cassidy's behalf at his hearing, that's all."

"What did you say?"

"I told the investigators that I knew Cassidy, that I could vouch for his character. I knew a few of them, and I knew my word would carry weight with them. I told him that Cassidy would never act in a way that was less than honorable. I said Cassidy must have made a mistake about seeing him that night, but that the man accusing him wasn't without culpability, because I knew for a fact that he had asked Cassidy to lie for him and that he had threatened Cassidy when Cassidy refused. I asked them which was more honorable—a man who made one honest mistake, or one who made threats to get his way and sought petty revenge when he didn't get it?"

"They still discharged Cassidy after hearing your testimony?"

"Yes. But not dishonorably, which is what the guy was after."

Jane's mind was working rapidly. "What was the project you were all working on? The reason you were all out there in the first place."

"It was an irrigation project," Noah told him. "It was an arid area, and we were trying to make sure the local farmers had an adequate supply of fresh water to support their crops."

Jane frowned. "Do architects usually work on irrigation projects?"

"Not always, but they can," Noah said. "This one involved the construction of a dam. It was a little outside my field of expertise, but I was asked to help on this project partly because I already had a fair amount of practical experience by that point in my career. This young man who was put in charge of the design may have been a genius, but the army still wanted someone with more experience to oversee the project as a whole, make sure the practical details were taken care of and that the project stayed on track."

A dam. Jane inhaled sharply. He crossed the room and sat down next to Noah, feeling as though he had just entered a state of shock. "Tell me about the young woman," he said urgently. "The one who was killed."

Noah looked taken aback by the intensity of his interest. "Her name was Leila Ahmadi. I guess she was known as something of a local beauty, but I never saw her for myself. She lived with her parents, had two brothers and four sisters. I didn't know much about her, beyond that."

"How was she killed?"

"She was stabbed to death." He grimaced. "I didn't see the body, of course, but I heard it was pretty gruesome."

"Yes," Jane said softly. "I can imagine."

Noah looked very far away for a moment. "One detail always stood out in my mind. The killer… her brother, I mean… he painted her toenails in her own blood. That always seemed very strange to me. Polishing one's nails is not a common practice in that part of the world."

The bottom dropped out of Jane's stomach. He seized Noah's arm. "Are you sure? That her nails were painted in blood, I mean? Are you absolutely sure?"

Noah blinked at him. "Reasonably sure, yes. One of the men investigating the death told me about it in confidence, but I don't see any reason he would have had to lie about that. Why do you ask?"

"Why?" Jane repeated. "_Why?_ Because that's exactly what was done to my wife and to your daughter, that's why. My God, how could you not make the connection? How could you not have mentioned this when the initial investigation was being held?"

Noah went pale. "You're telling me this happened to Emma? That someone painted her toenails in her own blood?"

Jane stared at him. "You didn't know?"

Noah shook his head. "I—I never looked at the body. I couldn't bear to see my little girl like that."

"And no one told you," Jane realized. After all, it wasn't the sort of detail a morgue attendant would point out to a grieving father.

"No." The truth was dawning on Noah slowly as he processed the significance of this fact. He turned to Jane in shock. "You think it was the same man? That the same man who killed that girl all those years ago killed Emma and took Maya?"

"I'm absolutely certain of it," Jane said.

"But the brother—"

"Framed and murdered so he'd stop causing trouble," Jane said. "I'd stake my life on it."

Jane watched as the full force of this revelation hit the other man. Noah's hands clenched into hard fists. "That son of a bitch," he said savagely. "I'm going to kill him."

Naturally, Jane sympathized with this sentiment, but there was another question that was bothering him. "Why do you think he took such a big risk?" he wondered aloud. "He couldn't count on you not seeing Emma's body after she was killed, and you're one of the only people in the world who could have told everyone his real name. After everything he's done to avoid detection, how could he make such a huge mistake as to expose himself to you by killing your daughter the same way he killed that girl in the desert? He must have known you would make the connection eventually."

"He didn't know," Noah said, dazed. "He wouldn't have known."

"What do you mean?" Jane asked.

"The details of the murder weren't shared within the unit. Everyone was so worried about word getting out about a member of the U.S. Army had been accused of murdering a local girl that the investigators locked down all the details of the investigation. I only knew about the toenails because I knew one of the investigators, and he told me about it in the strictest confidence. No one else in the unit ever knew about that fact."

"My God," Jane breathed. "That was his big mistake. His huge, defining mistake. He assumed he was free and clear, that no one would ever know the truth about what happened in the desert. He was arrogant enough to think that he could do the same thing to your daughter, and that no one would ever find out the truth."

Noah frowned. "I've read about Red John in the newspapers. The articles never mention that he paints his victims' toenails. I'm sure I would have made the connection earlier, if they had."

"Details like that aren't usually shared with the press," Jane said. "But as it happens, painting the toenails isn't part of his usual mode of operation. He did it to my wife, and to Emma, but in both of those cases, he was breaking pattern."

"Why would he break pattern for Emma?" Noah asked. "It doesn't make sense. If he thought I knew about the toenails, he wouldn't have wanted to risk it for fear I would realize who he really was. But if he didn't think I knew about the toenails, what was the point of doing it at all?"

"He has a twisted sense of humor," Jane told him. "The idea of forging a connection between your daughter and the incident in the desert that caused you to humiliate him would have appealed to his ironic sensibilities, even if no one knew about it but him."

"Humiliate him?" Noah repeated. "You think he killed Emma and kidnapped Maya as revenge? For what, telling a bunch of men in uniforms that my friend wasn't a liar?"

Jane nodded. "I do."

"But—I was barely involved! Cassidy was the one he threatened."

"He got his revenge on Cassidy, too," Jane said. "He ruined his military career, and I'm convinced he arranged his death here in San Angelo all those years later."

Noah looked thunderstruck. "The accident? You think he caused the accident that killed Tom?"

"Caused the accident to kill him, or to cover up the killing."

"Why didn't he just come after me?" Noah said, looking tortured. "Why did he have to come after my children?"

"In a way, I think Red John believed what you did to him was actually worse than what Cassidy did. Cassidy refused to lie for him, and didn't back down under pressure, but you went in front of a group of men who he wanted to find him impressive and made him look petty and childish. For him, that was your unforgivable sin. He knew you well enough to know you wouldn't be afraid of facing him yourself, so he had to devise an alternative if he wanted revenge. So he decided to take your children from you."

Noah gripped Jane's shoulder painfully. "Do you think they're still in danger? Is he still planning to come after them?"

"No, I don't," Jane assured him. "I think he's given up on Maya and Drake." Which was odd, now that he thought about it. Why would Red John go to so much trouble to take Maya and groom Drake as one of his disciples and then give up entirely when Hardy was caught? Did he think that to continue pursuing them was too great a risk? Or was there some other reason?

"Are you sure?" Noah said, frantic.

"No, I'm not sure," Jane admitted. "But if he were going to come after them again, why hasn't he done it already? What would he be waiting for?"

Noah's breath evened out slightly, reassured by this logic. "I don't know."

Jane thought about the implications of what he'd just learned and realized that Noah and his family would be well-advised to stay on their guard. "Now that you mention it, though, you could all be in danger now that you've told me this. You mustn't let anyone know I've spoken to you, do you understand? Don't let Drake tell anyone I've been here, either. The man you knew in the army isn't such a lone wolf anymore. He has a network of followers who seem to pop up in the most unexpected places. And trust me, you do not want word getting back to him about what you've just told me."

Noah shuddered. "I believe you."

"Keep your family close, Mr. Plaskett," Jane advised.

"I will," Noah promised. "You can count on that."

"Good. Now, I need you to tell me one last thing before I go."

"What's that?"

Jane could hear his heart beating in his ears. "What was his name? What was the man's name?"

Noah exhaled a deep breath, and the seconds it took for that breath to escape through his teeth felt like an eternity to Jane. "His name was Russo," Noah said at last. "Jonathan Russo."


	33. Chapter 33

Jane performed the standard bug check when he got back to his Citroen in a manic haze. A name. He finally had a name, after all these years. Jonathan Russo. Red John was Jonathan Russo.

He got in the car and stared at the dashboard, unseeing. Red John had been in the army. He was an engineer. Lisbon had been right about her dam theory. He drove back without attending much to the road, and when he got back to Sacramento, it was past eight. He'd been at the Plaskett's longer than he'd anticipated.

He thought about going back to the CBI, but Rigsby was on guard duty so the chances that Lisbon was still at the office were slim: they wouldn't have left too late because Rigsby got antsy if his meals were delayed.

He thought about calling Lisbon and to tell her what he'd learned, but discarded the idea immediately. This wasn't the type of news he could tell her over the phone.

On the other hand, if he didn't call her for his usual check-in soon, she would start to worry.

It wasn't ideal, but ultimately he solved his dilemma by calling Rigsby for his check-in instead of calling Lisbon directly.

"Rigsby, hi," he said when the other man picked up the phone.

"Hey, Jane," Rigsby replied. "How's it going?"

"Fine. Just calling in for my check-in."

"You want to talk to the boss?"

"No, that's okay," Jane said, keeping his voice light. "I don't want to disturb her."

"Okay. Did you have a good trip?"

"Yes."

"Find anything out?"

"The trip was very fruitful. I'll tell you all about it in the morning. Say good-night to Lisbon for me, will you?"

"Sure thing."

Jane hung up and thought about Rigsby relaying his message to Lisbon. He felt a little bad about it. Lisbon would be suspicious when Rigsby told her Jane didn't want to talk to her because he didn't want to disturb her. Jane disturbing her was a hallmark of their relationship. He knew she would worry that something was wrong, even if she had Rigsby's assurance that he, Jane, was fine, but at least having made the gesture of the check-in would prevent an outright state of panic. Also, hopefully it would prevent a squadron of police officers being ordered to track down him and his Citroen in the middle of the night.

He fiddled with his wedding ring and thought guiltily about the fact that not only he was skipping the standard check-in with Lisbon, but that he was also going to be skipping their now usual bedtime phone call. He hoped Lisbon would understand the message he'd given Rigsby when he'd asked him to say good-night to her for him and that she wouldn't wait up.

He was surprised how tempting it was to call her anyway. He was actually having to resist the urge to go over to her apartment and recount the whole story of Hardy's effort to recruit Drake and Noah's connection to Jonathan Russo to her immediately. He wanted to see her reaction, hear her insights. He thought about going over there and demanding that she rally the troops immediately to discuss his discovery. But no—there would be time for that later. He needed to process what he'd learned, determine his next course of action. As much as he valued her input, he needed to think clearly, and Lisbon was definitely a distraction. A decidedly alluring distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.

He frowned. She'd already addled his thought processes more thoroughly than he'd realized. He'd been after revenge for so long, and he now had the means to achieve it. After all this time, he had Red John's name, and he was sitting in his car obsessing over Lisbon's reaction to him bailing on her for one phone call.

To be fair, he could hardly go haring off on his own to get his revenge as he'd always planned without at least a little more to go on. Though he had a name, he still had no information attached to it. No address, no place of business. He was pretty sure Jonathan Russo wouldn't simply be listed in the phone book. He was going to need the team's help to track him down, whether he liked it or not.

But if he did have an address… if he knew not only Red John's name, but how to find him—would he? Would he abandon Lisbon, the team, and seek his nemesis on his own?

He'd always assumed the answer to that question would be yes. That it wouldn't even be a question. It was a given. Revenge was his only priority… the only thing he cared about.

Things had changed. He used to not care about dying. He used to think revenge was worth any cost, even if it included his life. Now, selfishly, he wanted to live. He wanted to take down Red John, never have to worry about him anymore, and move on with his life.

He thought about the Carters' priest, standing in the garden, telling him to pursue the path to peace. And that Lisbon could help him find his way.

He knew he never would have gotten this far without the help of Lisbon and her team. Running off on his own now would be poor repayment for they way they'd stood by him all these years. He owed it to them to see this through to the end as a team, a unit, a family.

On the other hand, his first priority was Lisbon's safety. Red John's threat against her was very real, and Jane had every reason to think that he would try again, once he discovered his first plot had failed. He was reasonably certain Red John wouldn't entrust the mission to a delegate a second time. That was one argument in favor of the Lone Ranger approach. If he could quietly slip away and kill Red John, it would remove the threat to Lisbon once and for all, without exposing her to any additional risk by including her in any efforts to storm the castle gates, so to speak.

If he failed, though—if he went after Red John alone, and Red John killed him for his trouble, the team would have no way of knowing where he'd gone. He would have ruined any chance of anyone else bringing the serial killer to justice. Even if the team thought to talk to Noah Plaskett and got a line on Jonathan Russo, by that point, Jane's attempt would have alerted Russo to the fact that they were closing in on him. Red John would disappear for good, and Jane would be dead with nothing to show for it.

Then there was the fact that Lisbon would never forgive him if he died on her while chasing his revenge. Though he knew once he was dead, he wouldn't care what the living thought, his living self couldn't stand the idea of Lisbon being disappointed in him. He hated the thought of her remembering him with bitterness and regret.

Without arrogance, he knew his death would destroy her. She might go on, continue to be an excellent team leader—maybe she would even get married, have children—but if he went off on his own without telling her what he was doing and got himself killed, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this single action by him would break her faith. It would make her darker, sadder, more cynical. To destroy that faith would be to destroy the very core of who she was. Living with his betrayal would ruin any chance she may have had at peace.

He paused. He believed that if he died, it would destroy any chance she would have at finding peace for herself. For himself, he knew that following the path that contained Lisbon was his only hope of ever reaching that elusive goal. Did that mean that they could only find peace together?

Perhaps he was being overly romantic. There was always the chance that Lisbon would meet some tall handsome cop one of these days who shared her passion for justice but could also teach her how to relax. He scowled and shoved this unpleasant image out of his mind. Dwelling on such notions was hardly productive.

No more distractions. He needed to think.


	34. Chapter 34

By the next morning, Jane had done the thinking he needed to do and was ready for action.

He called Lisbon at six.

"What?" she said grumpily when she picked up the phone, still half asleep.

"Wake up, sleepy-head," Jane said briskly. "You have a busy day ahead of you."

"You know I have a gun, right?" she growled. His Lisbon was not a morning person.

"Yes, but you'll have to get out of bed if you want to shoot me," he pointed out.

She muttered a rather unladylike suggestion as to what he could do with himself and his early morning phone calls.

"That's a fine thing to say to the man who just got a major break in the biggest case of your career," he chided her.

"You found something?"

"I did indeed."

"What is it?"

"You need to come to the office right away. I'll tell you about it then."

"Need I remind you that I'm your boss? I'm the one who gets to decide where and when communication occurs. Just tell me now."

"No can do. But I can tell you that it's big."

"How big?" Lisbon demanded.

"Really big."

"Tell me!"

He paused for dramatic effect. "I have a name."

He heard the rustle of bed clothes as she sat bolt upright in bed. "You have a name?"

"Yes."

"Red John's name?" she double-checked.

"I believe so, yes."

"What is it? What's the name?"

"Come to the office and I'll tell you," he said, and hung up.

Xxx

To his surprise, Cho and Van Pelt beat Lisbon into the office, arriving within moments of each other.

"Boss called us," Cho informed him, off Jane's surprised look. It was very early, after all.

"Did you really find out Red John's name?" Van Pelt asked.

"Yes," Jane told her. "I think so, anyway."

"So what is it?" she asked eagerly.

He shook his head. "I'll give you the whole story once everyone's here."

Van Pelt looked disappointed, but unsurprised. "Okay."

"Did you guys find anything new yesterday?" Jane asked.

"We found out Kellan Howard was definitely having an affair with Janine Taylor," she told him. "His widow is still alive and she told us he confessed the affair to her a few years after it happened. He left out the part where he killed her, though. She didn't know anything about that."

Lisbon showed up then with Rigsby in tow.

"What kept you?" Jane demanded.

"We had to stop on the way," Lisbon responded, shooting an annoyed look at Rigsby, who was devouring a breakfast sandwich from a fast food establishment as he walked.

"'m sorry!" Rigsby said around mouthful of his breakfast sandwich. "I was hungry."

"Never mind," Lisbon said impatiently. "What did you find out, Jane?"

"Noah Plaskett knew Red John in the army," he told them. "Red John killed a local girl while they were overseas and tried to get Plaskett's friend Tom Cassidy to cover it up for him."

Lisbon frowned. "Tom Cassidy? Wasn't that the name of the man who was sheriff in San Angelo before Hardy?"

"The very same," Jane confirmed. "He and Plaskett were army buddies."

"Did Cassidy help Red John cover up the murder?"

"No. Cassidy refused, and Red John had to come up with a different way of getting cleared. After Cassidy refused to back Red John's story, Red John had him kicked out of the army for trying to ruin his reputation. When he came back, he couldn't get a job, so Plaskett helped him get set up on the San Angelo police force."

"How'd he get cleared?" Cho wanted to know.

"He managed to produce some surveillance footage of himself at the project site and he framed the girl's brother for the murder, killing him for good measure."

"Why do you think this man you're talking about is Red John, if he had an alibi for the murder?" Van Pelt asked.

"He painted his victim's toenails in her own blood," Jane told her. "You think that could be a coincidence?"

"No," Van Pelt admitted.

"How could there be surveillance footage of him somewhere else if he was off murdering someone?" Rigsby asked.

"Obviously, this was one of his first forays into accessing a secure system and manipulating its data. I have no idea how he did it, but I'd bet my only pair of shoes that he tampered with the security footage somehow."

"But the army suspected him at the time?" Lisbon asked.

"The girl's brother—the one he ultimately framed—accused him, so they launched a full investigation. The army cleared him once he came up with the security footage, and then he turned around and demanded that they prosecute Cassidy for incriminating him."

"Where does Noah Plaskett fit into all of this?"

"Plaskett spoke in Cassidy's defense. He told the army Cassidy hadn't done anything wrong, and essentially called Red John a spoiled brat for going after Cassidy in the first place."

Lisbon sucked in a breath. "Jesus."

"Once they all got back from the army, Red John arranged for Cassidy to die in a suspicious accident and then set up one of his followers as his replacement as sheriff. Death was too good for Plaskett, however, because he insulted him, so Red John set about crafting a more complex revenge against him: he went after his three children instead."

"Three?" Cho asked.

"Yes, three," Jane confirmed. "Red John was trying to recruit Drake to join his followers."

Lisbon blinked. "Seriously?"

"Yes. I believe that was Hardy's primary reason for being in San Angelo. I think Red John sent him there specifically to persuade Drake to join Red John's followers."

"I thought you said Red John only helped with Maya Plaskett's kidnapping because Hardy asked him too," Cho said.

"That's what I thought at first," Jane admitted. "I thought Red John chose Emma as his victim because Hardy asked him for help getting Maya for himself. But now I don't think that's true. Red John was the one who chose them. Hardy was just there to do Red John's bidding."

Lisbon shook her head. "But Hardy said he was in love with Maya. He was the one who told us that Red John helped him because he wanted Maya to be his wife."

"We always knew that Red John rewards his followers when they are faithful to him. Offering Hardy a wife was meant to be a token of appreciation for Hardy's loyal service. Red John might have let Hardy choose which one of the girls he would keep and which one would be sacrificed to Red John, but Red John was the architect of that delusional romance, not Hardy. "

"That doesn't explain the part about wanting to recruit the brother. How did Hardy think he was going to do that when Red John kidnapped Drake's kid sisters?" Cho asked.

Jane told them what Drake had told him about Hardy and the 'Red Room.'

Rigsby shook his head when he had finished. "That's nuts."

"Why do you think Red John let Hardy take on such a risky task?" Lisbon wondered.

"I don't think Red John meant for Hardy to try to hypnotize him. He was just supposed to prime Drake for when Red John was ready to make his move. I think Hardy acted independently when he set up his so-called Red Room."

"Why would Hardy do that?" Lisbon said skeptically.

"Remember what Maldonado told us about being taken into a special place where Red John showed him visions of the future? I think Hardy was imitating something very close to what Red John does to cement the loyalty of his followers. He was trying to impress Red John and decided to try to persuade Drake to join Red John for him. It backfired, though. He didn't know the first thing about hypnotism, and he didn't read his mark properly, so he botched the whole thing. Red John was furious. Hardy ruined Red John's chances of ever convincing Drake to join him voluntarily. He punished Hardy severely for that bit of initiative."

"Why was Red John so set on getting Drake to join him in the first place?" Rigsby wanted to know.

"There's a twisted kind of elegance to it, if you think about it," Jane said. "He kills one of Plaskett's children, kidnaps the second, and takes the third as his own. Plaskett would be dealing with grief of the certain loss of one child, the torture of wondering about the unknown fate of the second, and then to top it all off, his last remaining child would be turned against him by his enemy."

"All that just because he thought Noah Plaskett humiliated him?" Lisbon said in disgust. "God, Plaskett was right. He really is childish and petty."

"His revenge didn't work, though," Van Pelt pointed out. "He killed Emma, but we found Maya, and Drake didn't want anything to do with Hardy after he tried to hypnotize him."

"If what Jane is saying is true about Red John wanting revenge against Plaskett, why would he just give up?" Rigsby asked. "Why didn't he just wait til we'd all gone back to Sacramento and kill Maya Plaskett in her bed or something?"

"I don't know," Jane admitted. "That's one thing that's stumped me about all this."

"There's something else bothering me about this whole thing," Lisbon said to Jane.

He turned to her. "What's that?"

"Why would he wait so long to get his revenge on Cassidy and Plaskett? Why the delay? They all got out of the army years ago. Why not just kill them and have done with it instead of waiting for Plaskett to have three kids and let them all grow up before going after them?"

Jane frowned. "That's an excellent question."

"Maybe Plaskett did something else to Red John more recently that he didn't tell you about," Cho suggested.

"I don't think so," Jane said. He thought for a moment. "I think Red John's reasons for killing have changed over the years," he said at last.

"In what way?" Lisbon asked.

Jane shrugged. "Let's look at his history."

He closed his eyes, his mouth softly parted, and Lisbon was forcibly reminded of the air he adopted when he was pretending to be a psychic. This time, though, his manner wasn't affected- he was merely concentrating: piecing together the fragments they'd collected with his incredible intuition.

"He was born to a prostitute named Janine Taylor," Jane began. "He never knew his father. His mother raised him, but she suffered from depression and was struggling to survive, and went through periods where she distanced herself emotionally from her son. Lonely and depressed, she began an affair with Kellan Howard. She was an attractive woman, and Howard was powerfully drawn to her. But he had issues of his own and grew paranoid that someone would find out about the affair. Ultimately, the strain of the constant secrecy and his inability to deny himself her presence while she was still alive pushed him over the edge, and he stabbed her to death. Red John witnessed the murder when he was only eight years old, and the experience scarred him for life."

He spoke in a smooth, hypnotic lilt of a master storyteller, half entranced by his own narrative. "After his mother's death, he was full of rage. He was thrown into the foster care system and couldn't relate to anyone around him—none of them had gone through what he had. He lost his temper easily, withdrew from everyone. He locked down the rage he was feeling, but every so often, he lost control, acted out. Because of these incidents, no foster family would keep him for long, and he grew even more socially isolated. Then he met the Tanners. He was older, stronger, and smarter than they were- they admired him, looked up to him. This was a new experience for him. He enjoyed the attention, and experimented with manipulating them—alternatively charming them and meting out punishments to see how far he could bend them to his will. He was incredibly intelligent and precocious. Reading his subjects and what motivated them was laughably easy, and he succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. His petty domination of them opened his eyes to a sense of his own power, and at the same time, it increased their dependence on him for emotional security."

"Meanwhile, he was planning for his future. He hated foster care and wanted to be independent. He was smart, so he applied to college early. He went to Stanford and graduated with a degree in civil engineering. Then he joined the army, determined to put his past behind him."

"Wait a minute," Lisbon interrupted. "Red John has a degree in civil engineering?"

Jane's eyes popped open. "Did I mention that he was sent overseas to build a dam?"

"No," Lisbon said, mind reeling. "You failed to mention that."

"Well, you were right all along," Jane told her. "He's an engineer, and apparently something of a genius when it comes to construction. Probably has advanced mathematical training. I could see physics being very appealing to him."

"Can we come back to Red John's math skills later?" Van Pelt said impatiently. "I want to hear the rest of the story."

Lisbon gestured her assent. "Go on, Jane."

"Where was I?"

"You were about to tell us how he ended up killing this girl in the desert," Cho told him.

"Ah, yes," Jane said. "The girl in the desert was probably his first murder. It was sloppy, uncontrolled. I'd bet anything her death was unplanned. She was beautiful, and he was entranced by her. He followed her. Perhaps he even succeeded in seducing her. But once he had her, he discovered that exploring her sexually wasn't enough for him. He craved something even more intimate from her. For the first time since his mother died, he felt truly alive, emotionally engaged. His passion took over, and he killed her. He'd been fighting his dark urges since he was a boy, and all of a sudden, far from everything he'd ever known, he lost control and found himself with a dead body on his hands. But instead of being horrified and remorseful, he was thrilled, excited. Then the girl's brother accused him, and he was caught off guard. He probably panicked at first when the brother pointed a finger at him and caused the army to suspect him, but he found that coming up with ways to outsmart the army was just as thrilling as the murder itself. To him, it added another element to the game, a way of extending the initial pleasure derived from the act of killing."

Rigsby shuddered. "Some game."

"It's all a game to him," Jane said. "He's used to running circles around anyone he meets, intellectually. He needs something to stimulate him, to challenge him. The murders themselves are intimate, an emotional release. But the planning for them, covering them up—that's fun for him. Over the years, though, his standard mode of operation became commonplace to him. He needed more complex challenges to stimulate him."

Lisbon shook her head. "Let's stick with the first one, for now. You're saying once he got cleared, he just went straight back to the irrigation project like nothing had happened?"

Jane nodded. "He likes having the respect of men in authority, likes that they are impressed by his brilliance. The army gave that to him through their need for his engineering skills. He didn't want to lose that, so he went back to work."

"If he was in the army and maintained strong ties with the military, that would explain how he connected up with Gupta and Jennifer Mundy," Cho commented. "He might have been an instructor in one of their training sessions at Fort Irwin."

"Makes sense," Jane agreed. "In any case, when his service was over, he continued his work as an engineer, building an empire for himself, currying favor with important political figures and amassing a fortune while he was at it. But having killed once, he found that he had a taste for it. He couldn't be satisfied unless he continued to feed that craving. He started thinking about Kellan Howard, and couldn't imagine a more deserving target for his wrath. He went after Howard, but he was still young and inexperienced. It was one thing to kill a defenseless young woman, but killing Howard, a career cop, was an entirely different matter. He failed to take into account Howard's strength and experience, and Howard managed to wound him in the altercation. He was forced to improvise, and slit Howard's neck before Howard could get the better of him. For some reason, he didn't hang onto the nail that Howard managed to wound him with and which he ultimately used to kill him. He left it behind by accident, only realizing much later that he'd left a damaging piece of evidence behind."

"He went back to his normal life, but everything was flat and faded. After the thrill of killing, nothing else could satisfy him. Eventually, he reconnected with the Tanners. He seduced Adelaide just because he could, but her slavish devotion to him quickly became boring to him. He recognized, however, that it could be useful. He thought about how he could use it to his advantage. Meanwhile, he was more and more preoccupied with what would come. He decided to try killing again, but this time, he would plan every detail. He would ensure there were no mistakes. He searched for a suitable candidate to be his next subject, and finally settled on another young beautiful woman. One he could be assured of finding at home alone one evening."

"He conscripted Orville Tanner as a lookout. Orville went along with it without knowing exactly what Red John was up to. Only later, when Orville became a suspect in the young woman's murder, did he finally realize the truth of what Red John has done. At the same time, the scope of Red John's vision was expanding. He killed several more times, but by that point he already needed more. He experimented with Adelaide, seeing how far she was willing to go for him, and she never disappointed him. Unlike her brother, she would do absolutely anything for him."

"Why would Red John kill Adelaide, when she was so loyal to him, and leave Orville free to tell anyone who cared to listen that Red John was the one who really killed the woman he'd been convicted of murdering?" Rigsby asked.

"Because he's a misogynistic bastard?" Lisbon suggested.

Jane frowned. "Actually, I think you might be right about that, Lisbon."

"Of course I'm right about that," Lisbon said, exasperated. "That's the one thing we've known about him all along, remember?"

Jane shook his head. "No, I mean I think the way he relates to women is very different than the way he relates to men."

"Doesn't everybody?" Rigsby wondered aloud. "I mean, not with the killing and everything, but, you know—"

Jane ignored him. "He associates women with comfort and emotional release, and those feelings are intensified when he finds one he believes to be worthy of being one of his… projects. He's charming, charismatic, and an expert at manipulating people. Seducing women comes easily to him. In a way, men are more mysterious to him, and because of that, he values them more than he does women. He never had a father, and he craves the approval of any man whose intelligence he respects. Now, with Orville, there was another level of complexity to that need."

"What do you mean?"

"His relationship with Orville was very complicated. Orville grew up with him, idolized him. He must have thought of Orville almost like a brother. He might have even seduced Adelaide in part to test him, as brothers test each other. But I think something very interesting happened when he did that. Orville was no prize, but he was always protective of his little sister. Orville was very unhappy with him when he did that. I bet he already had reservations about helping him with this mysterious errand he'd asked him to assist with, but I think his eyes were really opened to what Red John truly was when he learned he'd seduced Adelaide. And in a strange way, I think Orville's sudden failure to be completely enamored with Red John made him more interesting to Red John. He respected him more. He even cared for him, perhaps more than anyone else he'd encountered since his mother's death. Orville, meanwhile, was finally seeing who he was, and was ready to cut all ties. I bet Orville tried to warn Adelaide what he was really doing, but Adelaide was so in love with Red John she was blind with it. She wouldn't listen to a thing her brother said on the matter. She was never disillusioned with him the way her brother was."

Lisbon shook her head. "If Orville was so disillusioned with him, why would he write all those letters to his son telling him how great Red John was?"

"We don't know what was in those letters," Jane countered. "Hardy told us that his father wrote him every week. He never said what the letters were about."

Lisbon frowned. "It was implied."

"Based on what we know now, I don't think Orville mentioned Red John at all in his letters. I don't think he would have wanted his son anywhere near him. But after he died, Red John approached a grieving Hardy and told him he was an old friend of his father's. He knew all sorts of stories about the kid's old man, and Hardy was probably desperate for any kind of word of his father that showed him in a better light than the one he was accustomed to people pointing out to him, that of a murderer who deserved to rot in jail. Red John might have told him Orville would have wanted him to look out for him, if something happened to him. Hardy ate it up, and next thing you know, Red John has his next disciple."

"But why wouldn't Orville have rolled over on him completely, if he was so disillusioned with him? Why wouldn't he have told the police Red John's real name, instead of just complaining to his cell mate that he'd been set up?"

Jane thought about this. "Perhaps Red John threatened his son, or his sister, if he squealed. So Orville was stuck in jail, fuming about having allowed himself to have been manipulated into this situation, but powerless to change it."

"What about Irene Gregson?" Cho asked. "How does she fit into all this?"

Jane tapped his finger against his lips. "Good question. I'd be willing to bet that he seduced Irene Gregson, too, just like Adelaide. Once he had secured her devotion, he asked her to let him know if she came across any, shall we say, promising subjects, for his endeavors in the course of her work at the social services agency. She fed him names of emotionally isolated young people she suspected of having latent violent tendencies, and he would approach them independently, offering them something they needed—a job, a home, a means to gain influence with the people around them. He charmed them, offered them a place in the world when no one else would have them."

"Makes sense," Rigsby commented.

Van Pelt looked at Jane admiringly. "How did you figure all that out, just from what Drake and Noah Plaskett told you?"

He shrugged. "We've collected a lot of information about him over the years. At this point, putting together the whole story is simply a matter of filling in the gaps between all those disparate pieces of information in a way that makes sense. Like a puzzle. The more of it you have completed, the easier it is to find where the next piece fits in with the whole."

"It does seem to fit," Lisbon admitted.

"So what's his name?" Cho asked.

"His name?" Jane repeated.

"Yeah. Boss said you figured out Red John's name. I thought that was the whole reason for calling us in here early in the first place."

"Yes, I suppose it was," Jane said.

Cho gave him a look. "So what is it? What's Red John's name?"

"His name is Jonathan Russo," Jane told him.

"Never heard of him," Rigsby said, sounding disappointed.

"You were expecting to?" Van Pelt said.

"Well… yeah," Rigsby said. "Given everything he knows about us and about the investigation, I kind of thought he would be someone we knew."

"So did I," Jane admitted.

"Jonathan Russo. That name is familiar to me," Lisbon said slowly.

Jane stared at her. "You know him?"

Lisbon shook her head. "No. But I know the name. Hang on just one minute." She went into her office and returned with an open file. She flipped through the sheaf of paper until she found the page she was looking for. She ran her finger down the sheet and stopped about a third of the way down. "Here it is. Jonathan Russo. President of Steele Industries."

Jane felt a rush of adrenaline course through him. "That's him. My God. We've got him. All we have to do now is find him."

"Not so fast," Lisbon said. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

"What do you mean, not so fast?" Jane demanded. "It's been ten years, Lisbon. What are we waiting for?"

"All we have right now is a lot of guesswork. We could build a case on the circumstantial evidence we've collected so far, but I'm not willing to take that risk. We need proof."

"Lisbon, this is him! How can you even consider the thought of letting him walk free for one more moment than is absolutely necessary?"

"We don't have the evidence," she said stubbornly. "If we bring him in now, he could walk."

"We have the nail he used to kill Kellan Howard," he reminded her. "It has his DNA on it."

Lisbon shook her head. "That might be enough to bring him in for questioning, but any lawyer worth his salt would argue that the chain of custody for that piece of evidence is sketchy at best."

"What are you talking about?"

"Think about it from a judge's perspective. We have no idea how Rance Howard got his hands on that nail, and we don't know how long he was carrying it around. Then he gave it to Hightower, who was running for her life all over the state and at this point has had it in her apartment for at least the past two years. Not in an evidence locker with a solid paper trail to back it up. How is a judge supposed to know we didn't just manufacture this evidence to suit our theory that Jonathan Russo is Red John?"

"It has his DNA on it," Jane repeated.

"It might have been tampered with."

"It hasn't been!"

She held up a hand to forestall him. "I know. But that's what any decent lawyer will say in Russo's defense, and we can't prove that it hasn't been."

Jane ground his teeth. "I can't believe you are letting your love of bureaucracy stop you from bringing down Red John when he's finally within reach."

Lisbon looked as though he'd slapped her. The rest of the team shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not letting anything stop me," she said, her voice carefully controlled. "We have to be smart about this. The worst thing we can do right now is rush right into Steele Industries and arrest Russo without having solid evidence behind us. I'll be damned if I'm going to let him to get off on a technicality."

Jane bit back the retort that there was no way Russo was going to be walking anywhere once he got his hands on him. Lisbon lifted her chin and stared at him with a challenge in her eyes, as though she knew exactly what he was going to say. There was an awful tension in the room as they locked eyes, each unwilling to give an inch.

For once, Jane backed down first. He looked away. Though he'd always maintained that Red John belonged to him, he found he couldn't quite bring himself to repeat the familiar words when Lisbon was looking at him like that. He had a terrible suspicion that if he did, she might cut him out for good, having Rigsby lock him up in a cell downstairs until they had solved the whole thing without him.

"So what's our next move, boss?" Van Pelt said timidly, finally daring to break the silence.

Lisbon tore her eyes from Jane and refocused on the team. "Cho, I want you to see if you can get hold of Russo's military files. I'd like to learn more about his service history. Van Pelt, you start digging into property records. I want to know about any properties registered to Jonathan Russo or to Steele Industries."

"You got it," Van Pelt said.

Lisbon turned to Rigsby. "Rigs, I want you to help me go through the files for the other businesses we've been looking into, see if we can't find a definitive link between Jonathan Russo and the other Cut Iron construction companies."

Rigsby blinked. "Okay."

Lisbon returned to her office to collect the files she needed to give to Rigsby.

Jane followed her. "Lisbon…"

She ignored him.

"I'm sorry about the bureaucracy crack," he said grudgingly. "I didn't mean it."

She nodded, but didn't meet his eyes as she sorted through the stacks of files on her desk.

He watched her. "Really. I was out of line."

She looked up and met his eyes. "I know you think the way I do things is foolish, Jane, but that doesn't give you the right to undermine me in front of my team."

"I don't think the way you do things is foolish," Jane said, horrified by this characterization.

"I took an oath to protect the law," she continued. "And I intend to do just that, no matter what you think."

"I don't think that's foolish," he repeated. "I think it's… honorable."

"Right. Cause that word means so much to you," she said sarcastically.

It did, actually. "Look, I know we don't always agree about how to get things done, but I have always respected your perspective and the way you do your job."

She snorted in disbelief. "Yeah, right."

"It's true! I have the utmost respect for you."

She met his eyes. "You sure don't act like it sometimes."

He stepped towards her, desperate to make her understand. "Lisbon, if I have any idea what the word honor means, it's because of you. You're the most honorable person I know. I know you think that doesn't mean much to me, but believe me, it does. I've learned so much from you. As much as it frustrates me sometimes, I have always been impressed by your unwillingness to compromise your principles. You have no idea how much I respect you for that. Your integrity is one of the things that first made me—"

He broke off, scared of how he might end that sentence.

Lisbon looked at him, eyes wide. "First made you what?"

"First made me admire you," he managed, feeling light-headed. He'd almost slipped. He let out a shaky breath. God, this would be the worst possible time for a slip up like that. They were so close now. He just needed to be strong a little while longer.

"And don't worry about the team," he added, before she could examine his meaning more closely. "They would walk through fire for you. There's nothing I could do that could undermine you in their eyes."

"Be that as it may, I would appreciate it if you didn't belittle me in front of them," she said, her tone stiff.

"I didn't—"

She cut him off with a look.

He put up his hands in surrender. "It won't happen again," he promised.

"See that it doesn't," she said crisply.

He watched her as she went back to sorting through the files, arranging them in distinct piles. "How many of those files have you got to go through?" he asked abruptly.

"About twenty," she said, startled by the unexpected nature of his question. "Why?"

He held out his hand. "Give some of them to me."

"What for?" she asked suspiciously.

"I'll help you go through them, look for other connections to Russo."

She stared at him. "_You_ want to help look through files?"

He avoided her gaze. "Yes, well, that evidence you're so set on isn't going to find itself, is it?"

"You, Patrick Jane, are volunteering to engage in what you call to my face 'tedious drudgery' at least twice a week?" she asked incredulously.

"Do you want my help or not?" he said.

Wordlessly, she handed over the files.

He hoped that meant his apology was accepted.

Xxx

By the end of the day, the entire team was tired and frustrated. As Jane had predicted, locating Jonathan Russo was not so simple a task as one might expect. Rigsby gave up first, checking his watch around seven and announcing he had to go pick up Ben at Sarah's place. They'd found no mention of Jonathan Russo in connection to any of the files for the Cut Iron construction companies aside from Steele Industries. Cho was the next to leave. He had spent all day on the phone trying to get hold of Russo's military records, but so far his usual sources hadn't been able to help him.

Van Pelt was the only holdout, aside from Lisbon and Jane. She had found a PO Box for Steele Industries located in Los Angeles, but had yet to find a single property owned solely by Jonathan Russo that might give them some clue about where he lived. Currently, she was attempting to relieve her frustration by looking for a photograph of Russo that they could use to pin on the murder board. Unfortunately, so far, this had turned out to be an even less rewarding search than the hunt for property records.

Van Pelt scowled at her computer. "How the hell can there not be a single photograph of this guy on the entire internet?" she complained. "It's not possible."

"I'm guessing he's pretty camera shy," Jane responded as he leafed through yet another file.

"Seriously. There's not even a single snapshot of him in the company newsletter."

"Which company?"

"Any of them," she groused. "I checked."

"Mm," Jane said, lost in his own thoughts.

After awhile, even Jane needed a break. He went down the street to buy a cup of tea, foregoing the usual stock in the break room so he had an excuse to stretch his legs for a few minutes.

When he got back to the CBI, however, he found he wasn't quite ready to go back inside. It was a lovely night, and he decided he might as well ponder the latest developments in the Red John case outside as in. The fresh air would do him good.

He sat down on the curb and sipped his tea, thinking about Jonathan Russo.

His phone rang in his pocket, interrupting his reverie. He answered without bothering to look at the display. "Hello, Lisbon."

"Where are you?" she demanded.

"I'm outside," he told her.

"Outside where?" Her voice was urgent, almost desperate.

"I'm in the parking lot," he said, taken aback by her tone. "Why?"

"Don't move," she ordered.

He frowned at the phone. She had hung up on him. He didn't have long to wonder at her odd behavior, however, because she showed up outside the main entrance to the CBI less than a minute later. He saw her look around frantically, apparently scanning the parking lot for his Citroen.

"Hello, Lisbon," he greeted her. "Nice night, isn't it?"

She turned towards the sound of his voice and seemed surprised to see him sitting on the curb. Her expression was full of anxiety, and he saw relief wash over her face for the briefest instant before she walked over to him. "What are you doing out here?"

He shrugged. "Thinking." He looked up at her. Her eyes looked wild, desperate.

"Thinking," she repeated in disbelief. She sat down next to him heavily and buried her head in her hands.

He was instantly on the alert. "What's the matter? What's happened?"

She shook her head, but didn't answer, which did nothing to reassure him.

He gripped her arm. "Lisbon. Tell me what's happened."

She laughed shortly. It was a harsh, humorless sound. "Nothing's happened."

This was so clearly untrue that he ignored it entirely. "Something with the case?"

She looked over at him and his heart stuttered in his chest at the look in her eyes. "I went to the attic to look for you, and you weren't there," she said shakily.

Light dawned. "And you thought I'd run off to hunt down Red John on my own," he realized.

She released an unsteady breath. "Yeah."

"Lisbon, I—" he broke off. He couldn't say, 'Lisbon, I would never do that to you,' because neither of them would believe the words were true. Instead, he said lamely, "I'm here."

She passed a hand over her eyes, still trying to regain her composure. "Okay."

"I'm not likely to set off on my single-minded quest for vengeance just yet," he said, attempting to reassure her. "I don't know where he is, remember?"

Too late, he realized his words had had the opposite effect of what he'd intended.

Lisbon sucked in a sharp breath. "I thought you'd found a lead. In the files. A location."

Tentatively, he reached out and slid his hand into hers. "I'm afraid you're giving me far too much credit, my dear. I remain as much in the dark about Red John's true location as I ever was."

"Jane, I know I don't have any right to ask you this, but please promise me you won't go after him alone," she said seriously. "I know you want your revenge, and I…" she swallowed. "I may not be able to stop you. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if we're going to find him tomorrow, or in another six months. I'm not going to cover for you, and I won't help you break the law, but I won't ask you not to seek your vengeance in the way you see fit. Just, please, don't try to take him on by yourself."

"And you won't try to stop me?" he asked, watching her closely.

The corners of her mouth turned down and she bowed her head. "What do you want me to say, Jane? That I'll just watch happily while you take another person's life? That it won't matter to me if you ruin your own life in the name of revenge?"

"That's not an answer to my question," he observed.

She sighed. "Fine. Yes. I'm still going to try to stop you. I care about you. I don't want you to be killed. I don't want you to spend the rest of your life in jail. But if I find him first, I promise you that I won't leave you behind. All I'm asking is that you do the same for me."

"If you find him first, you're going to take me to the scene and make Rigsby sit on me somewhere out of the way so I can't make trouble, aren't you?" Jane said, smiling despite himself.

Lisbon refused to be deflected by humor. "Promise me," she said fiercely. "Promise me you won't go after him without me."

He looked at her unhappily. Revenge aside, she was asking him to take her into the lion's den. How could he make this promise to her without ultimately betraying the promise he'd made to himself, that he would protect her at all costs? Whether she liked it or not. Still, as he'd reflected the night before, he probably owed her this much, at least.

She squeezed his hand painfully. "_Promise_."

He met her eyes. "I promise, Lisbon. I won't go after him alone."

Her shoulders sagged with relief. "Thank you," she whispered.

Somehow, this didn't seem like quite enough. "Lisbon…"

"Yeah?"

"You have a right to ask," he said softly.

She looked at him, startled, but before she could respond, Van Pelt came outside, looking disgruntled.

"There you are," she said to Lisbon grumpily. "You're supposed to tell me if you're going out when I'm assigned to protect you, remember?"

"Sorry, Grace," Lisbon said, releasing Jane's hand.

"S'okay," Van Pelt said irritably. "Just let me know next time. You ready to go?"

"Yeah," Lisbon said, standing up and dusting off the seat of her jeans. "I just need to go inside and grab my stuff."

"I'll come with you," Van Pelt said.

"No need," Lisbon said. "I'll just be a minute."

Van Pelt rolled her eyes. "Boss, no offense, but you really suck at this whole letting people protect you thing, you know that? I'm coming inside with you."

"Okay," Lisbon said, looking chastened. She let her hand rest briefly on Jane's shoulder. "See you tomorrow, Jane," she said quietly.

"See you tomorrow," he echoed.

He watched them go and thought about his promises. His promise to his family, to avenge their deaths. His promise to Lisbon, not to leave her behind. And his promise to himself, to keep safe the only thing that still mattered to him. Was there any possible way he would be able to keep them all?


	35. Chapter 35

The next morning, the outlook was more promising.

Cho had called in a big favor to an old friend, and as a result, had secured a promise that the friend would provide him copies of Jonathan Russo's military records. He'd taken Rigsby with him to go pick them up from the local army base.

Van Pelt had set up a code script the night before to search tax and property records for Jonathan Russo and the Cut Iron companies, which had returned a number of promising results. She was now poring happily over tax records, convinced she would find the answers she needed there.

Lisbon, looking at the reams of paper that Van Pelt had churned out for her to review, seemed less optimistic. "I guess if we can't get him for murder, we can always take a leaf out of the FBI's book and nail him for tax fraud," she said gloomily. "That is, if we can prove these companies are all shell corporations run by the same individual."

"I may be able to give you a start on that," Jane said from his position on the couch, a cup of tea in one hand and a file balanced on his lap.

She looked over at him from where she was standing next to Van Pelt's desk. "How's that?"

He held up a piece of paper for her inspection. "Take a look."

She sat down next to him and looked at the paper he handed her. It had four names written on it in Jane's familiar hand. "Jay Rudolph, Ross Ferdinand, Jonathan Russo, and Roy Tagliaferro," she read aloud. She looked at Jane with a question in her eyes. "Obviously I see the connection between Russo and Tagliaferro, but how do the other two tie in?"

"They are the presidents and owners of Free Cloud Corporation and the Eisen Group, respectively," he informed her.

"You think Jay Rudolph and Ross Ferdinand are aliases for Red John, too?"

Jane took a sip of his tea. "I do."

"Based on what?"

"Ross and Russo share the same root, which means red. Ferdinand means 'daring journey' and also contains the letters 'r,' 'e,' and 'd.'"

Lisbon looked unconvinced. "And Jay Rudolph?"

Jane shrugged. "'Jay' for John. And Rudolph had a red nose."

"Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer?" Lisbon repeated in disbelief. "That's a reach, even for you."

"I will bet you the cost of buying lunch for Rigsby for a month that I'm right," Jane said, unruffled.

She looked back at the list. "All four of them are listed as company president or owner?"

"Yup."

"No bet," she said reluctantly. She looked at Van Pelt. "Van Pelt, I need you to add two names to your search. Ross Ferdinand and Jay Rudolph."

"On it," Van Pelt said, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

Lisbon stood up and stared at her murder board. "You know," she remarked to Jane. "There's something bothering me about this whole thing."

Jane took a sip of his tea. "What's that?"

"The timeline is off. We've figured out Russo was about nineteen when he joined the army, and probably twenty or twenty one when he committed that first murder. He must have been in the army about three or four years, and then he came back to the U.S. and killed Kellan Howard in 1986."

"What's your point?"

"We always thought his first murder was in 1998, with the help of Orville Tanner. From what we've learned, that was about the time he really started putting time into building his network of followers, too."

"So?"

"So, what the hell was he doing between 1986 and 1998? He's a serial killer. Usually serial killers have elements of an addictive personality—once they start killing, they don't take twelve year long hiatuses. They continue to murder in some kind of pattern, and usually escalate over time. It seems strange that he would commit two murders and then take a – what, almost like a leave of absence from killing for over ten years."

Jane frowned. "You're right."

"I think I have the answer to that," Van Pelt said from her desk.

"You do?" Lisbon said, surprised.

"Yeah, I've been looking through these records all morning, and it looks like these companies all got their start on military contracts overseas. If Russo was the leader of all the companies, he must have had to travel abroad a lot for business."

"That's how he got his start," Jane realized. "All this time we've been thinking his first kill wasn't until the late nineties, but that wasn't his first murder. Not even close. All those years abroad… he was practicing. Perfecting his methods so when he returned home he could feel confident that he would never leave any evidence that could be tied back to him."

Lisbon shook her head. "We would have heard about it if someone was drawing red smiley faces over murder sites all over the world. There's no way that would have stayed out of the press, I don't care how remote the places were."

"He must not have signed them," Jane said. "He was waiting until he was good enough to complete his masterpieces without worrying about being caught."

"He still made mistakes," Lisbon objected. "Bringing Tanner along on that first woman he killed here in California, and being surprised by Carter Peak on that murder he had to send Adelaide or Rebecca or whatever you want to call her to cover up all those years later when Bosco and his team were getting close."

Jane shrugged. "Precious few."

Rigsby entered then, carrying a box of files which he dumped onto Cho's desk with a grunt.

"Hey," Lisbon greeted him. "Where's Cho?"

"Grabbing a cup of coffee," he told her. He smirked. "He had a date last night and I don't think he got much sleep."

"Good for him," Lisbon said, thinking that it was a good thing at least one of them was managing to have a life.

Cho returned from the break room with a cup of coffee in one hand and a stack of envelopes in the other. "Mail's here," he announced.

"They're delivering the mail to the break room now?" Jane asked. "You CBI agents must be getting quite a bad reputation for slacking on the job if that's the first place they look for you."

Cho gave him a look. "I ran into the mail guy in the hall."

"Was it the hot one?" Jane asked, sipping his tea.

"The hot what?" Cho said blankly.

"The hot mail guy."

"There's a hot mail guy?" Rigsby asked.

"Lisbon says there is," Jane said.

"What?" Lisbon said, startled. "I never said that."

"Sure you did."

"When did I say that?" she demanded.

"A couple of years ago," Jane said, busying himself with his tea.

"I did not," she said indignantly.

"Don't deny it now, Lisbon. This could be the perfect time for you to make your move on what's his name from the mail room."

"Antonio," she supplied automatically.

"Exactly. It could be Antonio's lucky day."

Lisbon shook her head. "Antonio doesn't work here anymore."

"Pity," Jane said, not troubling to infuse his voice with anything remotely resembling sincerity.

Cho looked at them. "Do you want the mail or not?"

Lisbon held out her hand and Cho handed her the stack of envelopes. She sat down next to Jane again, flipping through the stack disinterestedly. Jane idly reflected that the sensation of her warm arm brushing against his was quite pleasant. When she paused on a plain white envelope with no return address, he felt her go tense beside him. "Jane," she said, her voice tight. "This one's for you."

"That's not good," Jane remarked. He never received mail at the CBI, and the last time he had, it had contained a threat to Lisbon's life. He set down his tea and took the envelope from Lisbon. He opened it, and drew out a note on heavy cream cardstock. He went very still as he read it, and heard Lisbon's sharp intake of breath as she read it over his shoulder.

Cho was watching their faces. "What does it say?"

Jane read the note aloud. "It says, 'Dear Mr. Jane- Since you have robbed me of my first choice of lamb, you have forced me to take another in its place. Unless you are willing to trade your pet lamb for mine, I'm afraid the one currently in my possession will have to serve as my intended sacrifice. The choice is yours." Jane held up the single sheet of paper for the team to see, displaying the red smiley face printed on the note in lieu of a signature, but no one on the team needed to see the familiar smiley face to know it was from Red John.

"Oh, my God," Van Pelt said, horrified.

They all looked at Lisbon, who looked as though she'd been sucker punched.

Rigsby swallowed. "That note can't mean what I think it means, right?"

"What do you think it means?" Jane asked.

"That Red John is asking you to trade the boss's life to save someone else."

"In that case, I'm afraid it means exactly what you think it means."

"Who could it be?" Van Pelt asked. "Who could be the second lamb?"

Jane shook his head. "I don't know. Whoever it is, though, it sounds like Red John already has them."

Lisbon made a sudden motion, and then jumped up. "Jason. It has to be Jason. He's young and innocent. Red John is punishing him for failing to kill me."

She didn't wait for a response, but grabbed the phone from Van Pelt's desk and punched in a number. "Hello, this is Agent Teresa Lisbon with the California Bureau of Investigation." She rattled off her badge number. "I have reason to believe one of your witnesses' location has been compromised and that the witness is in very serious danger. Can you please get me a twenty on witness ID 579-834-9981?"

Rigsby looked impressed. "She has the witness ID memorized?"

"She had to fill out a lot of paperwork to get him in the program," Van Pelt informed him.

"Yes, I'll hold," Lisbon was saying. She covered the mouthpiece and addressed Rigsby. "Rigs, can you run that down to the lab and ask them to run it for prints? You'll have to cross-check the records with the staff from the mailroom."

"Sure," Rigsby said, sounding unenthusiastic. Like the rest of them, he seemed to think it unlikely that they would actually find any useful prints on the card. He got up and took the note from Jane, preparing to head downstairs.

"Hey." Lisbon grabbed his sleeve as he went past. "I know it's a pain, but we've got to try, right?"

"Yeah," he acknowledged. "He's gotta make a mistake one of these days, right?"

She gave him a weak smile. "Right."

Rigsby left.

Van Pelt looked up at Lisbon. "What now?"

"We have to find him," Lisbon said. "We have to figure out where he's taken him. So for the time being, that means we keep working the case, just like we have been. Top priority is figuring out a location with ties to Red John and tracking down a photograph we can use to ID him and release to the media outlets. Van Pelt, you stay on the property and tax records. Jane, you help her. Cho, you stay on the military records just in case something pops there." She tapped her foot impatiently, her knuckles white on the telephone receiver. "Come on," she muttered. "What's taking so damn long?"

Jane was frowning. "This doesn't make any sense."

"It's Red John," Cho said. "Nothing he does ever makes any sense."

"On the contrary," Jane said. "Everything he does is highly rational. Every move he makes is perfectly calculated."

"So then what do you think doesn't make sense about what he's doing now?"

"He's asking me to trade Lisbon for another 'lamb,'" Jane said, using air quotes around the word 'lamb.'

"So he's messing with you as usual," Cho said.

Jane shook his head. "No. He has to know I would never willingly give Lisbon up. He knows I'm too selfish for that. Let's say the lamb is Jason. Why would I give Lisbon up to save the life of someone who was poisoning her? For all he knows, I would say he can do whatever he wants to the kid who almost took Lisbon away from me, and welcome to it."

"What makes you think you have a say in it at all?" Lisbon demanded. "I'm the one being offered up as some kind of prize."

"The note's addressed to me, Lisbon," he pointed out. "He wants me to be the one to take action. What I don't understand is why he would think I care two figs about what happens to Jason, or go out of my way to protect him."

"I'm not letting Jason die just because he was foolish enough to have a crush on me," Lisbon snapped.

Jane was silent for a moment, trying to figure out Red John's move here. Why would Red John think that he would lift a finger to save Jason? There had to be something they were missing.

The person on the other end of the line came back on the phone and Lisbon snapped to attention. "Yes… yes… when will that be?" She listened for their response. "All right. Thank you. Please let me know as soon as you know anything more."

She hung up. "They've dispatched a couple of marshals to check on Jason and his family," she informed Cho, Jane, and Van Pelt. "They're going to call me as soon as they know more."

She ran her hand through her hair, looking frustrated and upset. Jane's heart clenched in his chest, thinking just how very dear she was to him, standing there fretting over Jason's fate. How could Red John think there was anything in the world he wouldn't gladly sacrifice to keep her with him?

Aloud, he said, "Unfortunately, I don't think there's much we can do until Red John sends his next message."

"What makes you think he's going to send another message?" Cho asked.

"He asked me to trade in Lisbon for someone else. How am I supposed to do that without knowing where and when the trade is supposed to happen?"

"Maybe it would be better if you set something up yourself. Then you can fake him out."

Jane shook his head. "Won't work. He's going to want to control the time and location of the trade, I'm sure of it."

"You make me sound like a used car," Lisbon grumbled.

Jane ignored this. "The point is, there's no way to come up with a plan until he provides the time and location. Everything hinges on that. It's quite clever of him, really. He's hoping I'll panic about the threat to Lisbon and be so distracted by fear that I won't be able to come up with a decent plan to outsmart him."

"You seem pretty calm now," Lisbon said, sounding a bit put out.

Jane shrugged. "He made a mistake in warning me of his intentions. If he'd been thinking clearly, he would have kidnapped you in the dead of night or on the way home from the grocery store. Now that he's given me fair warning, my course of action is clear."

"What's that?" Lisbon asked with trepidation.

"Not let you out of my sight for the foreseeable future," Jane said, as though this were the most reasonable thing in the world.

Lisbon looked more horrified by this suggestion than she had by the prospect of being taken by Red John.

"You really think it's going to be that simple?" Cho said skeptically.

"It's exactly that simple," Jane said. "No doubt he'll have some clever plan designed to separate us—all I have to do is figure out how to prevent that from happening and stick to Lisbon like glue."

"Great," Lisbon muttered. "Something to look forward to."

She was giving every indication that she was not wild about the idea of going along with his plan for her personal protection. That meant her cooperation would not be guaranteed. Jane considered lifting Cho's handcuffs and shackling himself to her. He'd have to throw the key out the window to ensure she had no way of freeing herself from him.

After some consideration, he discarded this idea. If Red John decided to incapacitate him temporarily, his dead weight would inhibit her ability to protect herself and escape. Shame. It could have been fun, being chained to Lisbon.

"So in the meantime, we just keep working the leads we have?" Van Pelt inquired.

"Yes," Lisbon said. "That's the plan."

They all returned to their tasks, but there was a sense of urgency that hadn't been there before. Van Pelt attacked her research with a fervor Jane had never seen from her before. Even Cho looked tense as he continued his search through the military files. Lisbon was helping Van Pelt. Jane was busy trying to figure out Red John's next move. Whatever it was, it was going to be pretty bad.

Rigsby returned.

"Any luck?" Lisbon asked him.

He shook his head. "Guess today wasn't the day for Red John to make a mistake," he said ruefully. "No prints, no DNA."

Lisbon sighed. "Well, thanks for trying."

"So what's happening now?" Rigsby asked, looking around at the rest of the team.

"We're following any lead we have that might give us an address," Van Pelt informed him. "I'm going through property records now."

"I can help you with that," Rigsby offered.

"Great." Van Pelt nodded to a pile of papers on the corner of her desk. "You can start with those."

"'Kay." He checked his watch. "I've got to call Consuela first, though. Check on Ben."

Van Pelt gestured for him to do what he needed to do and returned to her perusal of the search results.

The phone on her desk rang but Lisbon snatched it up before Van Pelt could answer. "Hello? Yes, this is Agent Lisbon. Yes… yes…" She sighed. "Yes, I'll hold."

She leaned against Van Pelt's desk and watched Rigsby pick up his desk phone to call his home number, cursing the person who invented the horrible hold music that phone companies always used.

Rigsby held the receiver to his ear, frowning as he listened to the phone ring on the other end. Finally, the machine picked up. "Consuela, hi, it's Wayne, just calling to check in. Please call me back as soon as you get this."

One of the marshals from the team assigned to Jason's family finally came on the other end of the line and told Lisbon Jason and his family had been located and transferred to a secure location. "Thank God," she said. "Listen, keep a few extra agents on them, will you? The situation is critical."

Rigsby hung up, still frowning.

"Right," Lisbon responded to a question the marshal had asked her. "I don't know how, but there's every possibility the man trying to hurt Jason has gotten a line on his location, so keep everyone on high alert for the time being, okay? Thanks."

She ended the call. "Jason and his family are safe," Lisbon announced. The relief in her voice was palpable. "The marshals made it to them in time."

Jane frowned. "That doesn't make sense."

"What do you mean?"

"Red John said I forced him to take another in your place. Past tense. That implies that the lamb was already in his possession when we received the note."

"But he sent it by mail, so he had to have put in the mail yesterday at the latest," Lisbon pointed out. "He might have planned to have his lamb by the time we received the note, but something could have gone wrong. He may have had a harder time tracking down Jason than he anticipated, now that he's in protective custody."

"Maybe," Jane said doubtfully.

"I'm sure that's what happened," Lisbon said. "I'm just glad the marshals were able to get to Jason and his family so fast. We were lucky." She frowned. "Unless he has an insider within Witness Protection, too."

"That's certainly a possibility," Jane said. "Lots of law enforcement agents are ex-military. Now that we know he has a military background, there could have been any number of avenues for him to recruit additional followers through those connections."

Rigsby was on the phone again. He left another message, his expression growing anxious as he hung up for the second time.

Van Pelt looked up from her research. "Everything all right?"

"Consuela's not answering the phone," Rigsby said with a frown.

"Maybe she took Ben out," Van Pelt suggested.

"She's not answering her cell, either."

"She might have stepped away from it," Van Pelt said reassuringly.

Rigsby shook his head. "No. I always call at this time. She knows to keep her phone on her." He looked at Lisbon.

"Go," she said immediately. "Make sure Ben's all right."

He exhaled with relief. "Thanks, boss," he said gratefully. "I'm sure it's nothing. Just want to be sure, you know?"

"Of course," Lisbon agreed. She watched him pick up his cell phone and head for the elevator and the hackles rose on the back of her neck. A terrible sense of foreboding sank into her stomach.

No. It couldn't be. It _couldn't_.

Van Pelt stood to pick up a file on the edge of the desk and Lisbon caught her arm. "Grace," she said urgently. "Go with him."

Van Pelt's eyes widened. "You think-?" she said, horrified.

Lisbon shook her head, praying with all her might that she was being ridiculous and paranoid. "Better safe than sorry, right?"

Van Pelt swallowed. "All right." She looked after Rigsby's retreating figure. "Wayne," she called, hurrying after him. "Wait up."

He nodded, his jaw tight.

Lisbon was useless with anxiety for the next twenty minutes. Jane and Cho picked up her mood, and it must be admitted that very little progress was made by any of them during that time. The bullpen was thick with tension as Lisbon paced the room, unable to settle to any real task.

Finally, her phone rang. She fumbled in her haste to pull it out of her pocket. "Lisbon," she said without looking at the display.

It was Grace. "Boss, it's him," she said soberly. "It's Red John. He was here. He took Ben."


	36. Chapter 36

Lisbon, Jane, and Cho dropped what they were doing and raced to Rigsby's apartment, sirens blaring. Van Pelt met them outside the door, her face sheet white.

"Consuela's dead," she said without preamble.

Lisbon nodded, her heart sinking. It was about what she'd expected, but to have it confirmed was a blow nonetheless. "Ben?" she asked, her throat tight.

Van Pelt shook her head, and Lisbon could see tear tracks down her cheeks. "No sign of him."

"That's good," Jane said.

Lisbon looked at him incredulously.

He met her eyes unflinchingly. "That means he's still alive."

Van Pelt hesitated. "There's something else."

"What is it?" Lisbon asked.

"Red John left another note for Jane," Van Pelt said reluctantly.

"Well, let's see it," Lisbon said impatiently.

Van Pelt avoided Lisbon's eyes as she handed the evidence bag containing the note to Jane.

He read it aloud. "Dear Mr. Jane—If you do not wish your friend Mr. Rigsby's son to share the fate of your wife and daughter, please arrange for Teresa Lisbon to be delivered to me at the Griffin Theater at 4pm today. Please be aware that only you giving me Agent Lisbon willingly could possibly persuade me to give up my current prize. If you favor me with this gift, you have my word that I will release the boy unharmed and will never come after him or his family again. Should you fail to provide me this token of your esteem, I'm afraid young Benjamin will suffer the effects of my displeasure and his poor father will become a wraith of his former self, just like you. Kindly refrain from engaging any members of law enforcement outside your team to oversee this transaction, or I will be forced to end our game in a way that will prove most unhappy for the Rigsby family."

Lisbon looked at her watch in panic. "Four o clock? That's only four hours from now!"

"Then we'll have to think fast," Jane said. "We won't have much time to come up with a plan to rescue Ben."

Lisbon felt a great weight pressing down on her and for a moment she feared the sickening dread in her stomach had paralyzed her.

Then she realized it was Cho's hand, heavy on her shoulder.

She reached up and patted his hand, gently extricating herself from his grip at the same time. Apparently, this was Cho's way of expressing solidarity. She appreciated the sentiment, but she didn't have time for that right now.

"I need to talk to Rigsby," she said brusquely.

"He's inside," Van Pelt said.

Lisbon went into Rigsby's apartment. The rest of the team followed behind.

She found Rigsby standing at the end of his front hallway, staring dazedly at the red smiley face over his nanny's dead body. The smiley face, unlike the one in Jane's house, untouched for so many years, was marred by a large hole in the wall. The knuckles of Rigsby's right hand were swollen and bruised, but it looked as though he'd spent most of his initial rage in that blow. Now, his face was haggard, his eyes hollow - he looked like he'd aged ten years in the past forty minutes.

"Rigsby," Lisbon said.

He looked at her, but his eyes were unseeing.

"Listen to me," she said, putting her hand on his arm. "We're going to get him back."

His eyes refocused and he met her gaze.

"It's gonna be okay, you hear me?" she said fiercely. "We're going to get him back. I swear to you, Wayne, I am not going to let him hurt one hair on Ben's head. I won't allow it. Do you understand?"

He looked away. "Yeah."

Cho was inspecting the door. "Looks like Red John picked the lock. The nanny didn't let him in."

Jane came over to look at the body. "No," he agreed after studying it a moment. "She fought him. You can tell from the defensive wounds on her arms." He looked at Rigsby. "She was very brave. She died trying to protect Ben."

Rigsby sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. "Oh, God. I need to call her family."

"I can call them for you," Van Pelt offered.

Rigsby shook his head. "No. I should be the one to tell them."

Van Pelt looked unhappy, but didn't fight him on this point. "Okay."

Rigsby stepped out into the hall to make the call.

"Did he tell Sarah yet?" Lisbon asked Van Pelt in a low voice.

"He called her," Van Pelt said. "She just flew back east to visit her family this morning. She's trying to get a flight back now."

Lisbon nodded, feeling a stab of guilt for feeling secretly relieved that she wouldn't have to face Sarah right away. It was bad enough trying to look Rigsby in the eye right now—she wasn't sure she could face the woman whose son had been kidnapped by a serial killer so he could use him as a bargaining chip in exchange for Lisbon's life.

She turned to the team. "Anything else we can learn from the scene?"

"He must have been planning this for awhile," Jane remarked. "He was familiar with Rigsby's visitation schedule with Ben. He knew about Consuela and planned it purposefully for a time when Rigsby would be out of the apartment."

Lisbon frowned. "And that helps us how?"

Jane shrugged. "It doesn't. But it does let us know that he's planned this whole thing meticulously, so he's probably planned for any immediately obvious move we're likely to make."

"Great," Lisbon muttered. "Thanks for those words of optimism, Jane."

"Rigsby left the house at eight and called Consuela at eleven, so there's a three hour window when Red John could have taken Ben," Cho said. "Maybe one of the neighbors saw something."

"Good call," Lisbon said. "If one of them saw him leave, they might be able to give us a license number, or at least a make and model of the car he used."

Jane shook his head. "It's a waste of time. Even on the off chance you do get a license number from a neighbor, there's no way you would be able to run a search through DMV and run down the address before the time limit has elapsed. And he wouldn't be there anyway, because he's too smart for that."

Lisbon glared at him. "If you have a better idea, feel free to contribute it." She looked back at Cho. "Call local PD, get some bodies out here canvassing, see if one of the neighbors saw anything that could be useful."

Jane raised an eyebrow. "You're going to let the local cops in on this? I take it that means the veil of secrecy has been lifted from the investigation?"

"It's too late for that," Lisbon said. "He already knows we're onto him, or he wouldn't be making these desperate moves. He's got time on his side, which means he has the upper hand for the moment. All we can do now is come at him with sheer numbers."

"I'll make the call," Cho said.

"Good. I want our techs, though. Van Pelt, can you call the forensics unit and get them out here?"

"Sure thing, boss."

Jane was looking impatient. "Am I still needed here?" he asked.

"You have somewhere more important to be?" Lisbon said incredulously.

"Yes. I need to go back to the office so I can come up with a plan to save Ben and keep Red John from kidnapping you, too."

"Go ahead."

"You're coming, too. We'll need Van Pelt as well, once she's done with her phone call."

"But—"

"The canvassing is a waste of time, Lisbon," Jane repeated. "Everything is going to hinge on the time and location of the trade. We need to be preparing for that, not waiting around for the forensics unit."

Lisbon sighed, realizing he was probably right. That really never stopped being annoying, even when he was trying to save her life. "Fine. Cho, you stay here with Rigsby. Coordinate with forensics and the local uniforms, then meet us back at the office."

Jane, Lisbon, and Van Pelt trooped back to the office. Once there, Jane set Van Pelt on pulling up satellite images and of the Griffin Theater and blueprints of the building.

Jane was getting agitated. "Too many exits," he said when he saw the plans. "We won't be able to cover them all ourselves. If we had enough manpower to surround the place, we could cover them all, but if we take a SWAT team to that theater—"

"Red John could kill Ben before we even get inside," Lisbon finished, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat at the thought.

"Maybe we could break in beforehand and surprise him," Jane muttered.

"And then what?" Lisbon asked. "Point a gun at him while he's holding Ben and ask him nicely to hand over the kid?"

"I don't know," Jane said, frustrated. "He'll have planned for that possibility too, I'm sure of it. And every other plan I'm likely to come up with in the next several hours.

Lisbon laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You'll come up with something."

Jane laughed bitterly. "I haven't bested him yet. What makes you think that I'll be able to do it now?"

"I have faith in you," she murmured, squeezing his shoulder.

He closed his eyes, hoping against hope that her faith in him would be justified.

She let go of his shoulder and turned to Van Pelt. "Can you pull up the satellite images of the theater again?"

Van Pelt complied. Lisbon looked at the satellite images and sighed. "Damn. That building is close to onramps for Highway 50, I-80, and I-5. There's no telling which direction he might be coming from or which way he might be planning to go when he leaves the theater. Are there any major public events in that area this afternoon?"

Van Pelt clicked her mouse. "The governor's making a speech to at a hotel to the Small Business Association, and there's a groundbreaking for a new community center, but neither of them are that close to the theater. It's kind of a run down area- there's not a lot around there."

"He chose it because it's isolated," Jane said. "He'll want to have the run of the place without anyone accidentally interfering with his plans just because they were in the neighborhood."

"Do we know anything about the theater?" Lisbon asked. "Besides what we can tell from the blueprints, I mean?"

Van Pelt clicked her mouse again. "It was built in 1949. It was pretty popular through the fifties and sixties, but started going downhill in the mid-seventies and never really recovered. It closed down in the early nineties but the owners never bothered to sell it, probably because the value of the land had declined so much. It's just been sitting there ever since. It was condemned about a year ago and then nine months ago the property was purchased by—" she stopped and looked up. "Cut Iron Properties."

Lisbon sighed. "Of course it was."

Cho and Rigsby returned shortly thereafter.

"Got anything?" Lisbon asked Cho.

He shook his head. "None of the neighbors saw anything. We've still got uniforms canvassing, but so far, no luck. How about you?"

"Yeah, did you guys find anything?" Rigsby asked desperately.

"Not much," Lisbon admitted. She relayed what little information they had found, and Rigsby's face fell. "Don't worry," she said quickly. "We'll figure something out. There's still time."

The team worked frantically, but still couldn't come up with a solid plan.

Jane was panicked now. He was longing to retreat into the attic so he could concentrate, but he was afraid of letting Lisbon out of his sight. He stayed on his couch in the bullpen, desperately trying to come up with a solution to their current dilemma that would end with both Ben and Lisbon alive and safe from Red John. Nothing could happen to Ben. Jane couldn't let sweet, affable Rigsby become like him, a broken shell of a man. At the same time, the thought of Red John getting his hands on Lisbon was intolerable.

Jane was convinced Red John didn't have any real interest in harming Ben for the sake of the act itself. However, this was hardly useful, because he knew Red John wouldn't hesitate to kill Ben as punishment if Jane succeeded in foiling Red John's plans for the acquisition of his true prize.

Jane came up with a half a dozen plans to get Ben back, but he discarded all of them—they each had at least one gaping hole that he was sure Red John would spot a mile away. No matter how many ideas he came up with, he couldn't seem to come up with a single one that didn't pose an unacceptable risk to either Lisbon or Ben.

This was the trouble with allowing yourself to care about other people again, he thought miserably. It ruined your ability to think objectively about any situation in which your loved ones' lives were at stake. If he wanted to have any chance of coming up with a workable pan to defeat Red John, he needed to be cold and detached. Instead, he was an anxious wreck who apparently couldn't scheme his way out of a paper bag.

After several precious hours had ticked away, Lisbon called a halt to the team's activities and ordered everyone to huddle up in the bullpen. "All right," she said briskly once the team had gathered in a half circle around her. "What've we got?"

"I've reviewed the results of the code script I ran last night," Van Pelt reported. "Based on that, I've come up with a list of twenty-three properties Red John owns, either under the name Jonathan Russo, one of his aliases, or one of the company names he's associated with."

"Twenty-three?" Jane said, dismayed. Yesterday he would have been overjoyed to hear this news; now it appalled him. It was too many. Even if he was able to narrow it down to the few most likely properties, they wouldn't have time to look into them all before the deadline was up. Hell, at this point, even if they knew exactly where Ben was being held, there was no guarantee they'd be able to get to him in time.

"Yeah. He's hidden the connections to himself pretty thoroughly, but they're all his," Van Pelt said.

"Good work, Van Pelt," Lisbon said. "Cho?"

Cho shook his head. "Nothing. All the military stuff was a dead end as far as tracking down a location goes. Sorry, boss."

"Rigsby?"

Rigsby looked haunted. "Nothing new," he choked out.

Lisbon turned to her consultant. "Jane, please tell me you have some crazy plan up your sleeve that will get us out of this mess," she said fervently.

He looked into her eyes, full of trust and hope. He had never hated himself more for disappointing her. He met her gaze bleakly. "I'm sorry. I can't—" he swallowed. "I can't think of anything. I don't know how to save Ben." Or you, he thought.

Telling her this was a thousand times worse than he'd imagined. Not least because she didn't believe him at first. "Come on, Jane," she said. "You have to have at least one insane idea that you think might work."

"I don't," he said, forcing himself to keep his eyes on hers. "He knows me too well. Every move I could possibly make ends with me in checkmate."

He saw the exact moment the truth of his words sank in, the instant she comprehended that he had failed her. Her face fell; her beautiful eyes were full of dismay. She'd been relying on him to come up with a brilliant scheme to save them, and he'd let her down when it mattered the most.

She swallowed. "Okay."

"I'm sorry," he said pathetically.

She shook her head. "Not your fault."

She turned away abruptly and walked to the window, half in a daze.

"Lisbon," Jane began. He started towards her, but Cho laid a staying hand on his arm.

"Give her a minute," Cho said in a low voice, and Jane reluctantly obeyed.

Lisbon stared out the window, her eyes unseeing. She fiddled with the cross on her neck and closed her eyes, her lips moving in silent prayer. After a moment, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and returned to the team.

"This can't be happening," Van Pelt said desperately. "There has to be something we can do."

"There is," Lisbon said, and there was a certainty in her eyes and a resolve in her voice that Jane recognized. When she got that look in her eyes, Jane could talk until he was blue in the face, but it would be impossible to dissuade her from doing what she believed was right. He wasn't sure exactly what it meant in the current circumstances, but he had a bad feeling about it.

"What's that?" Cho asked.

She met his gaze calmly. "It's very simple. We're going to that theater. When we get there, I'm going inside, and Ben is coming out."

"You're planning to turn yourself over to Red John?" Cho said.

"I'm accepting the terms of his trade," Lisbon replied.

"Forget it," Jane said flatly. "That's not happening."

"We don't have a choice, Jane," Lisbon said. "This is the only option."

"No," Jane said stubbornly. "I won't allow it."

"_You_ won't allow it?" Lisbon said, annoyed. "This is my decision, Jane. You don't have a say in it."

"Oh, yes, I do," he contradicted her. "I'll tie you up and lock you away if I have to."

She glared at him. "I'd like to see you try it."

"You can't just turn yourself over to Red John," Van Pelt said.

Lisbon looked at her. "I have to, Grace."

"But… he'll kill you," Van Pelt said, aghast.

Lisbon met her gaze squarely. "It's the only way to save Ben."

"What if Red John breaks his word?" Jane argued. "He might decide to just kill both of you."

"That's a risk we're going to have to take," Lisbon said, infuriatingly calm.

"Sure, no big deal. It's only your life you're gambling with here," Jane snapped.

"For what it's worth, I believe he will give Ben back if I turn myself in to him," Lisbon said.

"He's a sociopath, Lisbon!" Jane said incredulously. "You can't trust anything he says."

"I know, but think about it. He doesn't have anything to gain by keeping Ben if I give myself up to him. Ben is just a means to an end, to him. I'm the one he's wanted all along."

"So giving into the demands of a serial killer is suddenly acceptable law enforcement procedure?"

"Like I said. We don't have a choice."

"Yes, we do. We have the choice not to hand you over to Red John like a prize he won at a carnival game."

"I'm not letting Ben die," Lisbon said stubbornly. "I'd never be able to live with myself if I didn't do absolutely everything in my power to save him."

Jane turned to Cho. "Tell me you're not going to let her go through with this insane suicide mission."

Cho shook his head. "It's her decision," he said, sounding unhappier than Jane had ever heard him.

Jane turned to Rigsby. "Rigsby?"

Rigsby looked away, but said nothing. Jane should have known - Ben was his top priority, no matter what the cost.

Only Van Pelt took Jane's side. "Jane's right, boss," she said. "You can't go through with this."

"I've made my decision," Lisbon said with finality. "Unless one of you has a better idea, I'm walking into that theater at four o clock."

"No," Jane said desperately. "I'll go instead."

That was the right ending to this story, he realized. He should be the one to die. He, the worthless, lying worm, was the expendable one. Not good, strong Lisbon. The world needed her in it.

Lisbon didn't like this suggestion one bit. "No. I'm the team leader. I'll be the one to go."

"You wouldn't even be in this situation if it weren't for me," Jane argued.

It was true. If Red John hadn't caught onto Jane's feelings for her, he would never have gone after her like this.

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop blaming yourself for everything he does?" Lisbon demanded.

"It's the truth, Lisbon! He's only coming after you to get to me. I should be the one to face him."

"Not happening, Jane."

"Lisbon, for the love of God. Please listen to reason. I know how he thinks- of the two of us, I have a better chance of figuring out a way to escape once I'm on the inside."

Lisbon shook her head. "Even if I agreed, it wouldn't work, Jane. I'm the one Red John wants, not you."

"Lisbon's right," Cho said. "Red John wants you alive so he can keep messing with you."

"Exactly," Lisbon said. "He's not going to accept you as a trade for Ben's life." Then she added awkwardly, "But it was nice of you to offer."

Jane shook his head. He wasn't nice. His offer was entirely selfish. He couldn't bear the thought of his life without Lisbon in it. He searched her face. "There's nothing I can do to get you to change your mind?" It was framed as a question, but it came out sounding more like a statement. The awful truth of his words settled in his stomach like a cold stone.

"No, Jane," she said quietly. "I'm going to go into that theater and I'm going to make sure Red John doesn't hurt Ben."

He sighed. "Fine. Then I'm going with you."

"No," Lisbon said. "I need you on the outside so you can figure out how to catch him after—" She caught herself. "After this is all over," she finished lamely.

"Someone else is going to have to do that," Jane said grimly. "I'm going with you."

"That's crazy," Lisbon protested. "There's no point in both of us surrendering to Red John. He'll just kill both of us."

"Either you let me go in your place, or I'm coming with you," Jane said. "Those are your choices."

"No, Jane. I'm not going to let you come with me just so you can get killed for no reason."

"I'm sticking to you like glue, remember? I decided earlier it would be better not to handcuff myself to you, but don't think I won't change my mind and chain myself to you if you continue to be difficult about this."

Lisbon looked at him in alarm. "You thought about handcuffing yourself to me?"

"Yes. At the time, I decided the disadvantages of that plan outweighed the advantages, but let me tell you, right now, that plan is looking more attractive by the moment."

"Jane, it's not that I don't appreciate what you're trying to do, but there's nothing to be gained from letting Red John get both of us," Lisbon said.

"Lisbon, I'm not letting you walk to your death alone. If he wants you, he's going to have to take me at the same time."

"I don't want anything to happen to you," Lisbon said.

He threw up his hands. "How the hell do you think I feel?"

"Jane…"

He cut her off. "There's nothing more to say on the matter. If you go into that theater this afternoon, I'm going to be by your side."

She looked into his eyes, and she must have recognized the resolve she saw in them was equal to her own, because she looked very unhappy. She swallowed. "Okay," she said reluctantly.

Jane breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks."

She shot him an odd look, then turned back to the rest of the team. "We're leaving in twenty minutes," she said abruptly. "Be ready."

She went into her office and shut the door. The rest of the team lingered in the bullpen, somewhat shell-shocked as the realization slowly sank in that the team was about to voluntarily give up two of its members to Red John's knife.

Van Pelt was frantically scanning her lists of search results, but her face was pale and she was biting her lip in a vain effort to keep her emotions in check. Cho was leaning forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees and his hands knotted together, frowning at some unseen image which appeared to be manifesting itself in his mind's eye in a place roughly level with Rigsby's waste basket. Rigsby was staring into space, his eyes hollow.

Jane spent a few minutes reviewing the blueprints of the theater again, but it was no good. His concentration was shot. He'd already learned everything he could from them, anyway.

He stood and stretched, then wandered over to Rigsby's desk. He produced a deck of cards from his jacket pocket and started shuffling them idly. Rigsby appeared unaware of his presence as he continued to stare into nothingness, his gaze fixed.

Jane placed the shuffled deck on Rigsby's desk. "Rigsby."

Rigsby looked around. "Yeah?" he said distantly.

Jane nodded at the stack of cards. "Cut the deck."

Rigsby sighed. "Jane, I'm really not in the mood for card games right now."

"Too bad," Jane said. "You're going to have to get over that."

Rigsby looked annoyed. "Why's that?"

"Because I'm about to show you a really cool trick."

"Seriously?" Rigsby said incredulously.

"Yes. You think you can learn it in twenty minutes?"

"I don't know, I guess," Rigsby said, confused.

"Good. Because when he's older, I'm going to need you to teach this trick to Ben for me," Jane said lightly.

Rigsby looked up at Jane. The eyes of the two men met in a moment of understanding. Rigsby swallowed. "What do I need to do?"

Jane nodded at the cards again. "Start by cutting the deck."

Rigsby did as Jane instructed.

"Okay, now pick them up and fan them out…" Jane told him.

Cho came over to stand at Jane's side so he could watch the trick, too.

"Now offer me one," Jane instructed Rigsby.

Van Pelt appeared at Jane's other elbow, peering over his shoulder to watch as well. Jane gave no sign of noticing this, merely continued walking Rigsby painstakingly through each step of the trick.

The four of them clustered around Rigsby's desk, the hypnotic lilt of Jane's voice soothing and oddly reassuring as he patiently explained the mechanics of his favorite trick.

When Rigsby finally mastered the trick, they were all smiling. All in all, Jane decided this was one of his favorite moments he'd ever spent with these three comrades. He was exceedingly grateful to have it to take with him in his memory palace for whatever time he had remaining to him.


	37. Chapter 37

When Lisbon emerged from her office, her face was pale and she was carrying three letters. She handed them to Cho. "Can you give these to my brothers?" she said quietly.

Cho tucked them in the breast pocket of his jacket. "Sure, boss. Will do."

"Thanks." She took off her cross necklace and handed it to Van Pelt, who was seated at her desk. "Grace, I want you to give this to Annie for me."

Grace looked stricken. "Are you sure? It could be… you know, comforting, to have it with you."

"I'm sure," Lisbon said. "I wouldn't want him to, uh, take it from me." Jane grimaced at the thought of Red John ripping this symbol that represented so much of who Lisbon was away from her. The rest of the team was equally appalled. "Annie should have it," Lisbon said hastily, in an effort to get past the sticky moment.

Van Pelt looked unhappily at the necklace in her hand. "I'll make sure she gets it."

"Thank you," Lisbon said. "Will you do one more thing for me?"

Van Pelt looked up and met her eyes. "Name it."

Lisbon smiled wryly. "Teach her how to knock down someone twice her size for me, will you?"

Van Pelt looked to be on the point of tears. "Sure thing, boss," she managed, ducking her head to conceal the tears welling in her eyes.

Lisbon put her hand on Van Pelt's shoulder. "Thanks, Grace."

Keeping her head down, Van Pelt reached up and blindly patted Lisbon's hand with her own, muffling her quiet sniffles with her other hand.

Lisbon's hand slipped from Van Pelt's shoulder and she looked at the rest of the team. "All right. Let's go."

They all rode to the Griffin Theater together. The brief moment of peace the card trick had afforded them was over, and the tension had returned to the group tenfold. Cho drove. Lisbon was in the front seat, with Jane and Van Pelt in the middle and Rigsby in the back. Jane rather wished Lisbon was the one next to him. Grace was doing her best to contain herself, but she was inclined to be weepy. She was understandably upset that this was probably the last time the team would ever be together before the fatal loss of two of its members, but Jane found the experience of witnessing someone grieve for him before he'd actually died rather uncomfortable. Lisbon, on the other hand, was sitting in tense silence. For once, Jane had no idea what she was thinking. Nonetheless, he would have appreciated having a few moments of being close to her before they walked to their deaths together.

When they pulled up to the theater, the parking lot was empty, and the place looked gray and desolate.

Cho parked near the edge of the parking lot, away from the main entrance of the theater. He cast a glance around the abandoned theater. "The valet here sucks," he remarked.

Lisbon choked out a startled laugh, and Jane felt the sound pierce his chest like a knife. Would this be the last time he ever heard Lisbon laugh? He'd catalogued a thousand of her smiles in his memory palace, but had he ever thought to take the time to parse the distinct tones of Lisbon's laughter? Surely he had, but why was his mind a blank? She had a wonderful laugh. He hastily tried to commit the sound to memory, but he'd been unprepared- the echoes were already slipping away.

Lisbon got out of the car, and the rest of them followed suit.

Cho checked his watch. "Quarter to four."

"They're not here," Rigsby said, sounding panicked. "No one's here."

"They will be," Jane said. "That, or they're already inside."

Van Pelt shuddered. "God, I can't stand this."

Jane wasn't wild about it either. "I suppose we ought to say our good-byes now," he commented.

Lisbon grimaced. She hated good-byes.

Jane couldn't blame her. As good-byes went, these were bound to be pretty awful.

He started with Cho. He stuck out his hand to the other man gravely. "Farewell, my friend."

Cho shook his hand. "It's a brave thing you're doing," he said seriously.

"Meh," Jane said, scuffing his heels on the pavement. "Lisbon's the brave one. I'm just along for the ride."

Cho met his eyes. "I'm glad I know you, Jane."

"I'm glad I know you, too, Cho."

"You're not as bad of a guy as you think you are, you know," Cho informed him.

"Perhaps you should put that on my epitaph," Jane said. "'He wasn't as bad as everyone thought.'"

Cho looked at him. "This sucks."

Jane chuckled. "That's what I like about you, Cho. You always cut right to the heart of the matter so succinctly."

Cho shook his head. "Look, I know it doesn't look good right now. But I hope we're wrong about how hopeless this is."

"That would be nice," Jane agreed.

"If we are," Cho continued. "Don't hesitate. Just kill the bastard and come back to us."

Jane smiled wryly. "I think I can promise that."

Cho shook his hand again. "Good luck."

Jane turned to Rigsby.

Rigsby looked like hell. Jane supposed that was to be expected, when one was trading the lives of two colleagues for the hope of seeing one's only child alive again. He put his hand on Rigsby's shoulder. "We're going to get Ben back, Rigsby," he said quietly. He had to believe that. If he and Lisbon were really going to do this colossally stupid thing together, he needed to believe it wouldn't all be for nothing.

"This is nuts," Rigsby muttered. "Lisbon isn't really planning to just hand herself over to Red John without a fight, is she?"

"I'm pretty sure that's exactly what she's planning to do," Jane said.

Rigsby swallowed. "For Ben?"

"You've known her a long time. Does that really surprise you?"

Rigsby looked sick. "But you have a plan, right?" he said. "You were just messing with us, like always, earlier. I mean—you're not really going to let her give herself up to Red John, are you?"

Jane shook his head, for once not having an answer ready at hand.

Rigsby, however, interpreted this as affirmation that Jane had an idea of how to pull a rabbit out of a hat, after all. He breathed a sigh of relief. "I hope you've told Lisbon what the plan is, at least," he said. "She's going to kill you if you keep her in the dark on this one."

Jane found he couldn't bring himself to tell Rigsby the truth. Let him have that hope, he reasoned. At least until his son was delivered safely to him. Once he had Ben back, nothing else would matter.

Jane went to Grace and hugged her.

Her breath hitched in her chest and her fingers fisted in the back of his jacket as she hugged him back.

Jane held her close, and leaned his head close to her ear. "Rigsby's still in love with you, you know," he whispered.

"You really want to talk about that right now?" she whispered back, incredulous.

He pulled back. "If not now, then when?"

"You and Lisbon are probably about to die, and you want to talk about love?"

"Certainly. Why would I want to talk about death when I could talk about love?"

She sighed. "I suppose you have a point."

"It's the most important thing in the world," Jane said. "Don't let it slip from your fingers- grab hold of it with both hands and don't let go."

Van Pelt glanced at Lisbon, who was talking quietly to Rigsby. "I'm sorry you never got your chance," she said sadly.

Jane followed her gaze. "Me, too," he said, realizing as he said it that it was one of the most honest things he'd ever shared with Van Pelt. One more regret to chalk up to the list.

He kissed her on the cheek. "Be well, Grace."

His good-byes completed, Jane found he didn't want to linger with the group. He stood a little to the side, watching Lisbon as she hugged first Rigsby, then Van Pelt, murmuring soft words of reassurance to each of them in turn.

Then she addressed all three of them together. "Look, guys, I know this is… a setback." Understatement of the century, Jane thought. Lisbon continued. "But don't give up. Red John was too quick for us this time, but the Serious Crimes Unit can outlast him. He's gotten cocky, pulling stunts like this one. I, for one, intend to make sure he regrets making the mistake of messing with this team. I know it's been a long, hard journey, but you're close now. You're going to bring him to justice in the end. I'm certain of that."

Cho spoke for all three of them. "We won't let you down, boss."

She gave him a smile, and despite the circumstances, it was a real one. "I know you won't. I love all of you, you know that?"

"We know," Grace said tearfully. "We love you, too."

Lisbon gave them all one last look, standing there shoulder to shoulder, watching her miserably. "Take care of each other," she said at last. "And stay safe."

There was nothing more that could be said—at least, not in the time remaining to them- so Lisbon took her leave of them and joined Jane.

"You ready?" she muttered to him.

He wasn't ready. After so many years of thinking all he wanted from life was the chance to face Red John face to face, he found he wasn't ready to die after all. He looked at the woman beside him, thinking that he would have traded anything in the world for a few more moments with her. "Yeah."

"Let's go."

She started to walk towards the theater, and Jane fell in step beside her, feeling the warmth of her body against his shoulder and breathing in the intoxicating, spicy scent of her.

As they approached the theater door, he panicked. He put a hand on her arm. "Lisbon, I—"

She stopped. "Yeah?"

He let his hand fall from her arm and looked into her green eyes helplessly. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

She shook her head. "It's not about what I want. It's what needs to be done."

"Aren't you scared?" It wasn't what he'd meant to say; the words tumbled out of their own accord.

She met his gaze. "Yes. But I'm not going to let that stop me from doing what I have to do to save an innocent boy's life."

He scrubbed his face with his hand. "There are some days that I really hate how noble you are, you know that?"

She hesitated. "Listen, Jane… it's not too late for you. You don't have to come inside with me."

"The hell I don't," Jane said indignantly.

"I know you must be scared, too—"

"The only thing that scares me is the idea of losing you," he said sharply. "If you go, I go, Lisbon. That's already been decided. I just—I can't believe this is how this whole thing is going to end."

She smiled at him a little sadly. "In some ways, it's a fitting ending to our story, don't you think?"

"A protracted and painful death by a madman wielding a knife?" he said sarcastically.

"That's not what I mean."

"What do you mean, then?"

"This is our life's work, Jane. Yours and mine. We've done what we set out to do. We've brought down Red John."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "He's going to kill us, Lisbon," he reminded her.

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. He's finished, Jane. This is his last hurrah. The team knows his name. They know who he is, and they're going to stop him."

"And your life isn't too high a price to pay for that?"

She shrugged. "There are worse ways to die. At least we're going to die doing something important. Something with honor. That's more than most people can say."

"Saving Ben," Jane murmured.

For the past ten years, he'd thought he would die exacting revenge. Dying to save someone else wasn't something he'd expected to do, but as a reckoning of his life, he supposed it was better than anything he'd ever had reason to hope his life would amount to.

She nodded. "Keeping one more family intact." She took a deep breath. "Look, I know I should send you away. I shouldn't let you do this for me. But for what it's worth, part of me is thankful for your stubborn refusal to be sensible and let me do this alone. I'm grateful to have someone I trust next to me in this."

He looked into her eyes. "I told you a long time ago, Lisbon. I will be there for you, no matter what."

She reached out and squeezed his hand. "I know you will."

She let go of his hand and put her hand on the door handle. "Now, come on. It's show time."

She pushed the door open and entered the theater, Jane close by her side.


	38. Chapter 38

The moment they entered the theater, the cock of a gun clicked right next to Lisbon's ear. She stopped, and Jane nearly ran into her. He put his hand on her hip to steady them both as the door closed behind them, and Lisbon turned her head towards the sound.

A tall, slightly heavyset woman in her early fifties stood there, pointing a Beretta handgun at Lisbon's head. "Hello, Agent Lisbon," she purred, a malicious gleam in her gray eyes and an electronic earpiece visible in one ear. "So kind of you to join us."

Lisbon glanced to her right and saw two more of Red John's people on her other side, one a small, reedy man with mousy brown hair and another man with a dark complexion and the height and build of a professional football player. They each had a gun trained on her and Jane.

She looked back the woman, whose face she recognized as belonging to Clarissa Allen's killer. "Irene Gregson," Lisbon greeted her coolly.

"You're all by your lonesome today?" Gregson inquired. "Excepting Mr. Jane, of course." She sneered. "Your white knight. Red John said he would come, but I wasn't sure. I shouldn't have doubted him, though. He's never wrong about these things."

Lisbon ignored this. "My team is outside. They won't interfere."

"No storming the castle gates?" Gregson asked mockingly. "No gang of cops ready to ride to your rescue at the last moment?"

"It's just us," Lisbon replied.

"All right, then. Hand over your cell phones," Gregson ordered, gesturing with the gun.

Jane and Lisbon reluctantly handed over their phones to the smaller of Gregson's companions, who had his hand outstretched for them.

Once this transaction was complete, Gregson lowered her gun and walked around to face Lisbon. She looked her up and down appraisingly, her lip curled. "Awfully bold, aren't you? Walking in here without even having your weapon drawn. Wouldn't they give you some kind of police demerits at cop training school for that sort of thing?"

"I didn't come here to shoot anyone," Lisbon said calmly. "I came here for the boy. Where is he?"

"All in good time," Gregson said dismissively. "You're to come with us first, and then we'll see about the child."

"Come with you where?" Jane asked.

She flashed him a grin, and Jane noted that her eyes held more than a little bit of crazy in them. "Not far, Mr. Jane," she said, sounding amused. "You needn't accompany her—you can wait here if you like. You can always be collected later. Red John won't want you to miss the show, after all. Come along, Agent Lisbon."

Lisbon didn't budge. "I'm not going anywhere until I have proof that Ben is still alive."

Gregson smiled. "So impatient. Not to worry. You'll see the boy shortly."

"You give me evidence he's alive right now, or you'll have to drag us kicking and screaming wherever it is you intend to take us," Lisbon said harshly.

Gregson looked at her askance. "Very well. I suppose we can indulge you on this point." She pulled a baby monitor out of her pocket and handed it to Lisbon.

Lisbon snatched it out of her hand and hastily switched it on. It had a video display as well as audio. Jane peered over her shoulder to get a look as well and they both saw Ben sitting on a red cushioned chair, playing with an antique silver rattle. "Ben!" Lisbon said desperately, her fingers tracing over his figure on the monitor.

Ben looked around inquisitively at the sound of her voice, although the monitor wasn't a two way and he couldn't see her. "Ta?" he said uncertainly.

A live feed then, Jane thought. Not recorded footage, if Ben was responding to the sound of Lisbon's voice. His shoulders relaxed, ever so slightly.

"Ben, honey, it's going to be okay," Lisbon said to the monitor, practically crying with relief. She knew Ben couldn't understand her, or know who was speaking to him, but she didn't care. She was just so unspeakably relieved he was okay. All they had to do now was get him out of here. Or wherever he might be being held.

"Tata?" Ben said, shaking the rattle.

Lisbon turned to Gregson. "Where is he?" she demanded. "Where are you keeping him?"

Gregson took the baby monitor away from her and stowed it in her pocket. "You'll see soon enough. Now you've had your proof, perhaps you'll be a bit more cooperative."

"I'm here, aren't I?" Lisbon said. "What more do you want?"

"It's not about what I want. It's about what Red John wants," Gregson said smoothly. "And for now, what he wants is for us to make sure you are a bit more suitably attired for your grand debut."

"More suitably attired?" Lisbon said blankly. "What the hell does that mean?"

Gregson eyed Lisbon's blazer and jeans and smirked. "You will be furnished a change of clothes more appropriate for this momentous occasion."

"A change of clothes?" Lisbon said incredulously. "What for?"

"Red John would like you to look a little more… feminine for your first meeting."

"Forget it," Lisbon said firmly. "I'm not changing my clothes to indulge some ridiculous whim of his."

Gregson tsked her disapproval. "Now, now. You wouldn't want to meet Red John looking less than your best, would you?"

"I'm not dressing up for that man," Lisbon said, disgust evident in her voice. "The deal was that I turn myself over in exchange for Ben. I've done that, so now it's time for your boss to hold up his end of the bargain. Give Ben back to his father."

Gregson raised her gun again, and the two men on the other side of Jane and Lisbon took a step closer to them. "I'm afraid I'm in a position to insist," Gregson said sweetly. "We still have the boy, if you recall."

Lisbon hesitated. "If we go with you now, then you'll take us to him?"

Gregson flashed her crazy smile again. "Certainly. Red John always keeps his promises. Mr. Jane here can vouch for that."

There was a crackling sound and Gregson jumped as her earpiece buzzed static in her ear for a moment before a voice came onto the other end of the line. "Yes?" she said breathlessly at the sound of the other person's voice. "Yes, we have them. We're bringing them now." She listened for a moment, and her face fell. "Yes," she said again, looking disappointed. "I understand."

The line crackled again and went dead. Gregson shot a venomous look at Lisbon, then gestured brusquely to the taller of the two men. "You," she snapped. "Take them to the next station. Me and Richards will stay here to guard the entrance for now. I'll be along in a minute."

The man who wasn't Richards nodded curtly. "Let's go," he said roughly to Jane and Lisbon, prodding Jane in the back with his gun.

Jane and Lisbon exchanged glances and did as they were bidden.

Their guard escorted them down the hallway and through a series of doors until they were deep in the bowels of the building. He finally halted in front of a non-descript door. "You can change in here," he said to Lisbon gruffly.

Jane, who knew where they were due to his careful study of the building's blueprints, asked, "What, no gold star on the door?"

The other man looked at him without changing his expression, then looked back at Lisbon. "The clothes are inside."

Lisbon took Jane by the hand and pulled him towards the door. "Come on, Jane."

Before Jane had time to marvel at the unexpected development of Lisbon voluntarily pulling him by the hand towards a door behind which she intended to take off her clothes, their guard put a meaty hand on his chest to stay his progress. "Orders are you change in there," he said to Lisbon. "He waits out here."

"No deal," Lisbon said flatly. "I've agreed to this ridiculous request, but only on the condition that we stay together."

"It's orders."

Lisbon met his gaze levelly. "Either you let him come inside with me, or you can just go ahead and shoot us right now. But I don't think your master would take it too kindly if you ended his fun prematurely that way, do you?"

He gave her a surly look. "Have it your way. But there are conditions."

"What conditions?"

"You will turn your weapons over to me when you come out," the man said sternly. "If you do not give them to me voluntarily, I will take them from you."

Lisbon scowled. "Fine."

"You have ten minutes to come out in the clothing that Red John has provided you, or I come in after you," he said. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," Lisbon said impatiently.

He released Jane from his grip. "Go ahead."

Lisbon kept a firm grip on Jane's hand and opened the door, revealing a tiny dressing room.

She dragged him inside, closing the door behind them.

"How many do you think there are?" she said urgently, as soon as the door was closed. "Two to guard the main entrance, another to guard the two of us. Do you think that's all of them? All the followers he brought with him?"

"No," Jane said. "There are nine exits in this building. He will have brought enough people to cover all the exits, plus a few more to guard the team and prevent them from calling the police. I'd guess he's got about fifteen of his people in here all together. Maybe more."

"Fifteen?" Lisbon said, aghast. "You think he has that many followers left? I thought we'd reduced his numbers more than that."

"I think we took out some key players. But those were just the ones we discovered through the course of other investigations. He's bound to have more that we've never heard of. I'd wager the ones he connected to through the military are a bit better at hiding themselves. More disciplined, better trained, that sort of thing."

"Great," Lisbon muttered. "Soldiers in service to a psychopath. Just what we need."

"It's not like that's never happened before. Just look at Nazi Germany."

"Another comforting analogy. You're just full of those, aren't you?"

"Cheer up, Lisbon. At least Red John doesn't seem to have any ambitions to world domination."

"Yeah, that's really reassuring in the current circumstances," Lisbon said. "I wish I could think of some way to hang on to my weapons until we know for sure that Ben is safe."

Jane shook his head. "No, I think we'd better give them up peaceably for now. Unfortunately, they have all the leverage as long as they have Ben, and they know it. We have no choice but to do as they say until we figure out a way to get him out of here."

"Maybe Red John will see our cooperation on this point as a show of good faith," she said, trailing off as she looked around and took in the contents of the room. "Oh, no," she said in dismay.

Jane followed her gaze. The room held a dressing table, a chair, a red dress, and matching shoes. "It's not that bad," he assured her. He walked over to the dress hanging on the back of the lone chair in the room and fingered the silky red material. "It's a beautiful dress."

Lisbon was eyeing the strappy red high heels that were evidently meant to complete the outfit doubtfully. "How am I supposed to walk in those?" she groaned.

"You wear high heels all the time," Jane pointed out. "I'm sure you'll manage."

"High-heeled boots," Lisbon said darkly. "With ankle support. And a sturdy heel. Not stilettos. I'm never going to be able to fight in these."

Jane looked at the pointy heels. "I don't know. If worst comes to worst, you might be able to puncture a critical organ with one of them."

"Small comfort," Lisbon grumbled. "I'd rather have a semi-automatic any day." She removed her service weapon from the holster on her hip and set it on the dressing table with a look of regret.

"Thought you didn't come here to shoot anyone," Jane remarked.

"I didn't. Not until Ben is safe, anyway. Then anybody helping Red John try to kill us is fair game," she said, lifting one leg and setting her foot on the chair to remove a second gun strapped to her ankle.

Jane watched this process with interest. "How many guns did you bring, anyway?"

She straightened and pulled a third gun from a shoulder holster. "This is the last one," she said. "Well, plus this," she added, producing a small pocket knife from her jacket pocket and holding it up for inspection.

He took it from her and examined it. "This is the knife you brought with you to a showdown with Red John?" he said skeptically. He unfolded the knife to reveal a tiny two inch blade. "Confronting him with this would be like attacking a shark with a toothpick."

"It was the only knife I had," Lisbon defended. "Why, what did you bring?"

Jane tapped his temple. "My rapier wit."

"Seriously?" Lisbon said, dumbfounded. "You're finally facing your enemy after all these years and you didn't bring a single weapon with you?"

"Not all of us have a personal arsenal available to us at a moment's notice, Lisbon."

"Uh-huh," she said, unimpressed. "Like you couldn't have lifted a weapon off of any agent passing down the hall if you'd wanted to."

He shrugged. "It just seemed rather pointless. Red John was bound to have some plan to strip us of our weapons, so why give him the satisfaction?"

Lisbon shook her head in disbelief as she continued to empty her pockets, setting her badge and wallet on the table.

He looked at the dress again. "Of course, I didn't realize that his plan to strip us of weapons would be literal, in your case."

She looked at the dress with loathing. "Don't remind me." She sighed. "I suppose I'd better get this over with." She made a shooing gesture with her hand. "Go over there and turn around, will you?"

Jane instinctively obeyed, turning and taking several steps away from her before his brain caught up with him and he changed his mind. He turned around to face her. "No."

"No?" Lisbon echoed, startled. She'd already been halfway through shrugging out of her jacket when he turned around, but now she hastily shrugged back into it and pulled it closed across her chest under his unexpected scrutiny.

"I'm not going to turn my back," he clarified.

Lisbon stared at him. "You're not?"

"No. I've decided the view facing this direction is much more interesting," he said, meeting her eyes.

"More interesting?" she repeated, her voice going a bit high at the end there.

He shrugged. "I'm probably going to die soon. Might as well see as many natural wonders as I can before I go."

"You're planning to just stand there and watch while I change my clothes?" she said incredulously.

"Yep."

She shook her head. "Not happening, Jane."

Jane wasn't about to give up the idea so easily. It was one of his better ones, really. "What are you going to do to stop me? Shoot me?"

"Don't tempt me," she muttered.

He tried a different tactic. "Please, Lisbon."

"No."

"What if I told you this was my last dying wish?" he wheedled.

She stopped. "Your last dying wish is to watch me take my clothes off?"

Well, if he got that wish, he'd probably have a few more that would immediately be added to the list. However, given their time constraints and the fact that they had a guard just on the other side of the door waiting to take them to a madman, Jane would take what he could get. "Yes."

She looked utterly flummoxed. She looked so cute standing there, torn between hitting him with the chair and giving in to her natural instinct to comfort him in whatever way she could.

Jane knew better than to laugh at her at this critical juncture, however, so he suppressed his first impulse and focused on making his expression pathetic and imploring.

She frowned at him, evidently suspecting he was manipulating her, but to his surprise, she wavered and relented in the end. "Fine."

"Really?" he said, delighted.

She shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, you are walking to your death for me. I suppose it would be churlish to refuse to grant you your last dying wish, under the circumstances."

"Too right," he agreed enthusiastically.

She sighed. "And I don't suppose it matters much, at this point."

"Exactly. We're on a mission to save a child and then nobly give up our lives for the cause. This is no time for your Puritan modesty."

She glared at him.

He raised an eyebrow. "You'd better get a move on. Bubba out there is probably going to bust in here any moment. I'm sure he wouldn't mind getting an eyeful, either, but—"

She pulled off one shoe and threw it at him.

He caught it handily and set it down. "Excellent start, Lisbon."

She avoided his eyes, busying herself with taking off her other shoe and stripping off her socks. "So what do you think his plan is?" she asked, addressing her remaining boot. "Do you think he's going to kill us here, or take us somewhere else?"

"He won't kill us here if he can help it," Jane said immediately. "The team knows where we are, and if he gives up Ben to them, they won't have anything to lose by calling in reinforcements. That puts a time lock on the deal. If he keeps us here, he'll have to kill us right away and then make his escape. He won't want to do that. He won't want to be rushed. He's unlikely to have another kill in the near future that will be as remotely satisfying to him as this one will be—he's going to want to savor it. He'll want to move us to a more secure location so he can take his time."

"So we should delay him here as long as possible," Lisbon concluded, straightening up and taking off her blazer.

Jane watched the collar of her blouse gape open interestingly in the front as she tossed the jacket on the dressing table. "Yes."

"All right," she said, untucking her shirt. "And if we're going to make an attempt to escape, we should do it here. Once Ben is safe, of course. If we let Russo take us away from here, the team may not be able to find him again."

"Correct," he responded, craning his neck for a better view as she started to unbutton her shirt.

"Once Ben is out of here, I can probably take down at least one guard. Maybe two," she mused as she continued to pop each button out of its hole, revealing an ever growing expanse of creamy flesh, inch by tantalizing inch. "Which exit do you think would be the best option if we do manage to get away from Red John long enough to make a run for it?"

She let the blouse slip from her shoulders as she said this last, and Jane lost his train of thought. In fact, the train derailed completely as he openly stared at her standing in front of him in her jeans and a plain black cotton bra.

He really hadn't looked down Lisbon's shirt often enough over the last decade, he reflected. She had amazing breasts. How had he not devoted more of his time to the effort of catching a glimpse whenever possible? And she had a really cute belly button. An innie. He couldn't believe he'd managed to know Teresa Lisbon all these years without knowing that she had such an adorable belly button.

"Well, what do you think?" Lisbon said impatiently.

His mouth was rather dry. He licked his lips. "Huh?"

"I said, which exit do you think is our best option if we do manage to pull off an escape?"

"Hm?" he said distractedly, still staring.

She waved a hand in front of his face. "Jane. I need you to multi-task here."

He raised his eyes to her face and searched his mind for some clue as to what she was asking him about. "Exits?" he said vaguely.

"Yes, which exit would be the best for an escape?"

He shrugged, returning his eyes to the constellation of freckles disappearing into the valley between her breasts. "Whichever one is closest at the time."

She huffed in exasperation, unbuckling her belt and tugging it out of her belt loops. "Thanks a lot, Mr. 'I Only Brought My Rapier Wit.'" She unzipped her jeans and did one of those sexy little shimmies that all women seemed to do unconsciously when they took off their pants as she wriggled out of them. "Really helpful." She stepped out of the jeans and threw them on top of the dressing table along with the blazer. She looked back at him, one hand on her hip. "Is that all you have to say for yourself?"

She was magnificent.

"Wow," was all Jane could manage to say. "Now that is a sight worth seeing before dying."

He was treated to an uninterrupted view of this glorious vision only long enough to see that her entire body flushed when she was embarrassed. She looked down and hastily snatched up the dress. She pulled it over her head, tugging it down over her chest and hips and reacting with dismay when she tried to tug the hem down and she realized it only came halfway down her thighs.

Giving it up as a bad job, she reached around to the back of the dress, fumbling awkwardly for the zipper.

"I can help with that," Jane said quickly, crossing the room and stepping around behind her with alacrity.

She twisted away from him. "I can do it, Jane."

He ignored her and managed to get his hands on the zipper despite her attempts to evade him. She went still under his touch. "I insist."

She swallowed. "Okay."

He stepped close to her, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her skin. He pulled the zipper up slowly, indulging the instinct to let his fingertips brush against her soft skin as he went and making himself light-headed from breathing in the scent of her shampoo so deeply.

The zipper stopped halfway up her back, just above the line of her bra. Not quite ready to stop touching her, Jane permitted his fingertips to trace lightly along the lines of her delicate shoulder blades.

She stepped away and turned around to face him, smoothing the dress over her slim hips nervously. She gave him an uncomfortable smile. "Not exactly my usual style, is it?"

The dress fit her like a glove. It had a square neckline and cap sleeves, but all Jane could process was that it hugged every curve she had, and red was his new favorite color. "It looks really nice with your freckles," he said stupidly, feeling a bit dizzy.

Lisbon frowned at him. "You're choosing now to make fun of me?"

"I'm serious," he said. "Your freckles do it for me every time. As enchanting as the rest of you is, I could write sonnets about your freckles alone. They're sort of… mesmerizing."

"My freckles?" she said, shocked. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. You look beautiful," he told her, thinking that 'beautiful' was an entirely inadequate word to describe her in that moment.

Lisbon glanced in the dressing table mirror and made a face. "Thanks. It's a nice dress, I guess. I'd like it better if I weren't wearing it for a date with a serial killer, though."

"Lisbon, I—"

She cut him off. "It's okay, Jane. We'll just take each moment as it comes, okay?"

She stepped up to the dressing table and trailed her fingers over her service weapon where it rested on the dressing table. "Guess there's really no way I could hide a gun in this dress, is there?" she said ruefully.

Jane's gaze raked over her again. "I wouldn't think so, no."

She squared her shoulders. "Maybe it's a good thing."

"What, that you're forced to face him unarmed?" Jane said incredulously.

"No. This whole absurd thing about dressing up to meet him."

"How could that possibly be a good thing?"

She shrugged. "I think one of the problems we always had with him was that he seemed almost inhuman to us. He was too clever, too good at vanishing like a ghost just when we thought we were getting close to catching him. But here he is, wanting to see a woman dressed up in a pretty dress just for him. He's just a man, and he has normal male instincts, normal human weaknesses. Maybe we can use that to our advantage."

Jane didn't find the idea of Red John having normal male instincts towards Lisbon in that dress nearly as comforting as she did. "I hope you're right."

"Guess it's good I brought this along, after all," she remarked, looking at the tiny pocketknife. She picked it up from the table and tucked it carefully inside her bra.

Jane watched this process in fascination. "What are you doing?"

"I said I would give myself up," she said grimly. "I never said I would go down without a fight."

Jane shook his head. "Bubba's going to take it away from you."

"No, he won't," she said confidently. "Men are awful prudes when it comes to searching women for weapons."

"You seem awfully sure of that."

"I used to work with vice back when I was with SFPD," she told him. "I can't tell you how many times I saw women hide pepper spray in their cleavage . They knew most male officers would blush like schoolgirls and avoid that area like it had cooties if they had to do the searches."

"You worked vice?" Jane had never known that.

"Just for my first six months on the force."

"Got out of there as soon as you could, huh?"

She nodded. "I hated it."

Jane could imagine. "I'll bet. Did they make you do undercover work?"

"Yeah. I was terrible at it, though."

Jane had trouble comprehending the idea of Lisbon being less than excellent at any task assigned to her. "You were?"

"Yep. I was awful. I had a tendency to glare when men approached me on the street. Apparently the potential johns found that behavior intimidating, and would back off before they got too close."

Jane chuckled despite himself. "I'll bet."

"Bosco said I had the worst entrapment skills he'd ever seen," Lisbon said, smiling slightly at the recollection. "He said he asked for me to be transferred onto his team just to save the vice squad from the millstone around its neck."

"He saw your potential," Jane said. "He knew you were being wasted there."

She shrugged. "Maybe. Anyway, I think I'll be all right with the knife. I know it's not much, but it's better than nothing."

"Bubba isn't a police officer," Jane pointed out. "I doubt he'll have any scruples about searching you thoroughly."

"You can see practically everything I've got in this dress," she countered. "He won't think it's necessary."

Jane was unconvinced.

She gave him a half smile. "Bet you five bucks he won't touch me."

Jane looked at her again, hoping this was a bet he would lose, but not nearly as confident as she seemed to be. "You're on."

There was a banging on the door. "Time's up," Bubba called roughly. "Come on out of there."

She slipped the red shoes on, and gestured for Jane to bring the guns. "Come on. Let's go get Ben."

Jane hesitated, and pocketed her badge and wallet, strangely reminded of carrying his wife's cell phone and lipstick for her when they went to a party together and she didn't want to carry a bag. In any case, he didn't like the idea of leaving them there for anyone to find. He tucked the badge into his breast pocket, where it rested next to his heart.

She strode to the door, and Jane followed, carrying the weapons awkwardly in his arms.

Irene Gregson was there, having rejoined Bubba at some point during Jane and Lisbon's interlude in the dressing room. She smirked at Jane. "Having fun yet?"

Jane ignored this. "Where do you want these?" he asked, raising his arms slightly to indicate the bundle of weapons he carried.

"Give them to Yager," Gregson said carelessly, gesturing with the gun in her hand.

It actually took a second for Jane to process that Yager was Bubba's real name. He handed the weapons over to the other man, who tucked them away in his jacket and at the small of his back.

"Make sure he doesn't have any others," Gregson instructed Yager.

Yager obeyed, jerking Jane roughly against the wall and patting him down for additional weapons.

Jane thought this grossly unfair, since Lisbon was the one who had brought all the weapons in the first place, but he accepted the treatment without complaint, deeply relieved that Lisbon had been right, after all. Their captors didn't seem to think it possible that she could be concealing anything potentially dangerous in the confines of the skin tight dress she was wearing.

When Yager was finished with his search, Gregson indicated for him to cover Jane and Lisbon with his own weapon as she put away the gun she was carrying. She pulled a small tube from her pocket and grabbed Lisbon by the hair without warning, jerking her head back with a grin of savage pleasure. Lisbon yelped in pain and surprise as Gregson forced her to tilt her head back and applied a streak of bright red lipstick to Lisbon's mouth with unnecessary force.

She completed her handiwork and unceremoniously let Lisbon go. Lisbon glared at her and massaged her scalp, but Gregson ignored her, slipping the lipstick back into her pocket and taking out her gun once again. "Let's go," she said brusquely, prodding Jane in the back with her sidearm. "It's time."

Jane and Lisbon allowed themselves to be guided around the corner and down another short hallway, and then they were in the wings of the theater's main stage. Jane slipped his hand into Lisbon's again, and she clutched his hand right back.

"Go on," Gregson ordered, indicating for them to go out onto the stage. "You're the stars of the show."

Lisbon and Jane exchanged glances, and then Lisbon took a deep breath and walked forward onto the stage. Jane followed, his hand still in hers.

A bright floodlight came on as they stepped onstage, zeroing in on them and catching them in its glare.

"Welcome, Patrick. Teresa." The soft, eerie voice greeted them as though they were old friends. Jane recognized the voice that had taunted him so long ago. _Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night. What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?_ "Come to the center of the stage where I can see you better."

The spotlight tracked their progress to the center of the stage as they complied with his request.

Lisbon looked out into the auditorium, trying to locate the source of the voice, but the light was nearly blinding, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust.

She saw dark figures standing in the wings, positioned at each entrance to the theater, looking like rather dour ushers. She counted four on the first level, two on the second. It looked like Jane had been right about Red John's level of reinforcements. Dammit.

Then her eyes fell on a man seated on one of the plush red velvet seats in the center of the theater, watching her and Jane with an amused smile on his face. It was a handsome face, with sleek black hair graying at the temples, high, sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin with a cleft in it. His hazel eyes met hers almost merrily, as he shifted in his seat, revealing the burden he held in his arms.

Her heart leapt into her throat: Ben was seated on Red John's lap, still playing with the ancient silver rattle.

She let Jane's hand fall from hers and started forward unconsciously, and Red John raised his right hand, idly twirling a long silver knife in it. "Careful, Teresa," he said lazily. "My hand might slip."

Lisbon went still. "You let him go," she said in a tight voice.

"All in good time, Teresa," Red John said smoothly. "I have need of him yet. Do not fear, however. He's perfectly safe at the moment."

Ben caught sight of the knife and reached for it, thinking it was a new play object for his amusement.

Red John laughed and held it away from his reach. "Not yet, young man. Later, perhaps."

He returned his attention to Lisbon. "I can't tell you how pleased I am to meet you in person at last, Teresa. I've heard so much about you."

"You'll understand why I can't say the feeling is mutual, Mr. Russo," Lisbon returned, her eyes still on Ben.

There was a slight hesitation. "Ah. You have discovered more of my secrets than I realized, my dear."

She shrugged. "No one can skulk in the shadows forever. It was always a matter of time before we found you."

He chuckled, displaying a perfect set of pearly white teeth. "Yet you are only here because I summoned you. I'm afraid time is no longer on your side."

"We'll see," she said coolly.

Russo turned his attention to Jane. "And you, Patrick? You're awfully quiet, for once. Haven't you anything to say to me – a greeting for your old friend?"

"Only this," Jane said. "Let Lisbon go, and the boy, and I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hurt them."

"An intriguing offer, Patrick," Russo said with interest. "One I will need to consider most carefully. For now, though, we will proceed with my original plan."

"What plan is that?" Lisbon asked warily.

"Why, to ensure Patrick understands exactly how much he has to lose in this world. You'd think he would have learned by now, but he still doesn't seem to appreciate the gifts that have been bestowed upon him."

Lisbon frowned. "You don't seem surprised to see him here."

He laughed. "Why should I be surprised? I planned for it."

"But the note—you only asked for me," Lisbon said, her mind reeling.

He shrugged. "I knew if I could come up with the means of inducing you to come here, Patrick would follow. All I needed to do was set the scene."

"Set the scene?" Lisbon repeated. "Is that why you made me put on this horrible dress and come out on this stage to meet you?"

"Don't you like the dress? Pity. I took special care in choosing it. If I do say so, you look lovely in it, Teresa," Russo complimented her. "Far more fitting attire for the leading lady of our little drama than your usual tomboy clothes."

Lisbon didn't trouble to keep the scorn out of her voice. "I suppose you think you're the main character?"

He chuckled. "Certainly not. That would be Patrick."

"Which makes you what?" Jane asked.

He smiled slightly. "The director, of course."

"Is that what this is about?" Lisbon said, her voice thick with disgust. "You get me to put on this ridiculous dress and have us come out on this stage so you can jerk us around like puppets on a string for your amusement?"

"'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women only players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts,'" Russo quoted.

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Please. You couldn't come up with a line less cheesy than that?"

"Shakespeare isn't your cup of tea, is he?" he asked her. He turned to Jane. "She doesn't have the most refined tastes, does she, Patrick? I know you, on the other hand, have a keen appreciation of the finer things in life. I'm surprised she would appeal to you so much. Pizza and beer in a sports bar rather than champagne and caviar at the symphony. She's not at all your usual type."

"You don't know anything about my type," Jane said, his voice carefully controlled. "And you don't know a thing about her, either."

"I know far more than you imagine, Patrick," Russo said silkily.

"I don't care what you think you know about me," Lisbon said flatly. "Let's just get this over with. Let Ben go."

"I think not, Teresa," he responded, idly stroking the top of Ben's head. "Once he's gone, I don't think you'll be quite so biddable as you have been so far, and I require you to be biddable a bit longer."

"What, for your little play?" Lisbon snorted. "Fine. Give me my lines, and I'll say them back like a good little parrot, if that will make you let Ben go."

He ignored this. "Shall I tell you how you first came to my notice, Teresa?"

"I already know the answer to that," Lisbon said impatiently. "I was assigned this case right after I was promoted to head of the unit. I'm sure you made it your business to know who was investigating you."

He chuckled. "As fascinating as I find the politics and bureaucracy surrounding law enforcement promotions, I confess I paid no attention to you whatsoever at the time. You were a nonentity to me. No more or less interesting than any of the other estimable civil servants who tried and failed to catch me. No," he continued. "I first took note of you when dear Patrick here shot and killed poor Dumar Tanner to save you. I had grand plans for Patrick, at that time, you see. I had drawn him in, and would have had him, if not for your interference."

"Glad to hear I succeeded in screwing up your miserable little plan, then," Lisbon said in satisfaction.

He laughed again, a chilling little titter. "I really ought to thank you for that, you know."

This threw her. "Thank me?"

"Oh, I was upset at the time, of course," he said carelessly. "But it made me take note of you, and your role in Patrick's life, and for that, I must be grateful, because it has led us here."

"Patrick, you see, was growing rather boring to me back then," he explained. "I admit at first my vanity thrilled at his fruitless efforts to catch me. I delighted in stymieing him, and thwarting his plans was always a diverting challenge. There are few men in this world with the caliber of mind that Patrick has, you see, Teresa. I quite enjoyed having him as a playmate once I observed his obsession with bringing me down. But after awhile, I started to tire of the game. He was so broken, so miserable, it was hardly any fun to tease him anymore. He didn't seem to care about anything but revenge, not even his own life. I thought perhaps I could take him in, school him in my ways, and finally have a deserving acolyte for my teachings."

"You thought I was going to join you?" Jane said incredulously. "That's why you lured me to Sparrow's Peak? To kidnap me and try to what, brainwash me into being a killer like you?"

"Perhaps, although I wouldn't put it so crudely. I hadn't completely decided what I was going to do with you, to be honest. I admit the thought of watching you try to kill me only to fail time and time again was somewhat appealing to me, but that could only last so long before your spirit became completely broken by the weight of your failures. In any case, I thought that if I had you by my side, you could be more entertaining to me than if you continued to run around California playing the brilliant detective. And certainly, if I could turn you, that would be a triumph indeed."

"Then why didn't you?" Jane couldn't help asking. "Why didn't you wait until the whole affair at Sparrow's Peak blew over, and take me then?"

"Why, because you confounded my expectations that day, Patrick. When you shot young Dumar, I learned that you did, in fact, care about something other than revenge. Or rather, someone," he said, with a significant look at Lisbon. "Suddenly you were interesting again."

"I don't think you were quite conscious of your attachment, at first," Russo mused. "You seemed unaware of your own feelings. But shooting Dumar was a wake up call, wasn't it? And then dear Rebecca reported that you were actually jealous of Agent Bosco. That was very amusing to watch, let me tell you. Oh, you were very subtle about it. I'm certain Teresa here never guessed the extent of your feelings, but I perceived the truth. At first your jealousy puzzled me, because it must have been as obvious to you as it was to me that she never loved him. At least, not in the way he would have liked her to. Yet your jealousy was undeniable."

"This was most intriguing," he continued. "I couldn't understand it. At last, however, the truth dawned on me. You were not jealous because you thought Teresa might be tempted to fall in with the stoic Agent Bosco romantically. You were jealous because she respected and admired him professionally. You were jealous because she had given him her trust." He smiled at Jane. "Imagine my surprise."

He looked at Lisbon. "That was when I truly started to pay attention to you for your own sake, Teresa."

"Really." Lisbon sounded unimpressed. "Because it sounds to me like you were still pretty focused on Jane."

He smiled. "That was when I started to observe you for myself from time to time, at any rate. To dig deeper into what made you so irresistible to our mutual friend here. It's true I never really understood what he saw in you. Oh, you're attractive enough, I suppose," he said, looking her up and down. "But what is that to a man like Patrick Jane? It would be easy for him to obtain any number of women as beautiful as yourself, if he chose to do so. Yet he seemed to have eyes only for you. Why?"

Lisbon ignored this. "Is that the reason you abandoned your plan to exact revenge on Noah Plaskett after we found Maya? Because Jane was more interesting to you than him?"

Russo raised his eyebrows at the reference to his connection to Noah Plaskett. "My, someone has been a busy bee," he drawled, but Lisbon thought she detected the tiniest note of uneasiness in his voice.

Good, she thought with satisfaction. They knew more than he'd expected them to.

She raised her eyebrows right back. "Well, was it?"

"In part," he acknowledged. "But also because I've learned over the years that if you want to keep your opponent engaged, you must allow him his own small victories now and then, or he may grow hopeless and lose interest in the game. To kill Maya Plaskett after you'd gone to all that trouble to save her would have had a deeply negative impact on Patrick's morale. If I wanted him to keep playing, it was in my best interests to give him the illusion that he had a chance of beating me in the end."

"Well, there was that," Jane commented. "And the fact that your revenge would never be perfect, after Hardy screwed it up for you by making Drake suspicious. After the stunt he pulled, Drake would never voluntarily join your followers. You were never going to have all three. Your satisfaction wouldn't be complete, so you left the Plasketts alone after all."

There was a tiny tic in the corner of Red John's eye at the mention of this, but he covered it well. "Dumar was young and overeager," he said smoothly. "I taught him to do better after that. He learned that lesson well, I think."

"And your other disciples?" Lisbon asked, watching Ben, who seemed content enough at his perch on Red John's knee for the time being. "Did they learn their lessons well?"

"Certainly," Russo said. "They were all most devoted pupils, once they committed to my cause."

"What cause was that?" Jane said. "Helping you kill innocent people? Or did you somehow convince them that they were actually serving some kind of higher power?"

"I teach them about Exaltation," Russo said languidly. "I help them find Serenity, and to experience the Sublime. And then they can see the truth—that right and wrong are illusions manufactured by society to bind them in chains and prevent them from exploring their true natures."

"You hypnotize them, you mean," Lisbon said flatly. "You use cheap tricks to gain their confidence, and then you dispose of them as soon as they outlive their usefulness to you."

"Not at all," Russo said, unruffled. "Each of my disciples is most dear to me. I reward them with the love and affection they need, and they are glad to volunteer when a sacrifice is required."

"I've been meaning to ask about that, actually," Jane said. "It's quite a confidence trick you've got going on there, convincing them that dying for you is in their best interests."

"All people are the same," Russo said dismissively. "They crave acknowledgment from those around them, and anyone will do, if he meets that need. They yearn for someone to love them completely and absolutely, without limits or reservation. I provide that love."

"Right until you kill them for their trouble," Lisbon said.

"On the contrary. Once a disciple makes the ultimate sacrifice, they have gained my absolute trust. They know that moment is the moment in which my love for them is most perfect and complete. They cannot know greater happiness than that love."

Lisbon shook her head. "You don't love them. They're like animals to you—like service dogs you've trained to do your bidding. You manipulate them into giving you mastery over them, and then you exploit their loyalty until they've outlived their usefulness to you."

"Yes, you use hypnotism to induce feelings of euphoria, bordering on ecstasy, and plant images and sensations in their heads that connect those feelings of with a concept of love for you," Jane put in. "You addict them to that feeling like a drug, and they'll do anything for a fix. Even take their own lives, if they believe that to be your will."

"Hypnotism," Russo scoffed. "A child's trick. My methods of persuasion are far more subtle."

"Nope," Jane said. "It's hypnotism all right. You're damn good at it, I'll give you that. Even better than me. But it's definitely hypnotism. Where did you learn it?"

"I traveled in the East quite a bit when I was a young man," Russo said, seeming amused by Jane's interest. "I studied with several shamans who helped me learn the fine art of influence and suggestion."

"You also spent that time learning how to be a better killer," Jane observed. "After the mistakes you made killing that young woman when you were in the army and the debacle with Kellan Howard, you knew you needed to learn to reign in your instincts, to be more careful if you wanted to go on without getting caught."

Russo raised one shoulder in a careless shrug, but Lisbon could tell he was rattled by the mention of Kellan Howard. "You know what they say," he said, his voice carefully modulated. "Practice makes perfect."

Jane smiled wryly. "That is what they say." He made a show of looking around him, and changed the subject. "This is a nice place," he commented. "A bit run down, but I'm sure a man with your skills could shore up those rotten timbers, bring the place back to its former glory."

"I'm glad you appreciate it," Russo said, relaxing. "So many people these days are unwilling to look beyond the surface. They would rather tear a place like this down and build some hideous condo building. They have no appreciation for true beauty, no patience for the art of restoration."

Jane met his eyes. "Your mother brought you here, didn't she?"

Russo went still.

"She brought you here when you were a little boy," Jane continued. "It was her favorite place. She dreamed of being an actress. She was happier here than anywhere else, wasn't she? The one place in the world you knew she wouldn't sink into one of her terrible depressions."

"My mother is not to be spoken of by the likes of you, Mr. Jane," he said icily. "I'll thank you to show some respect."

Jane inclined his head. "My apologies," he said contritely, inwardly congratulating himself on managing to ruffle Russo's composure.

Russo inhaled deeply, then slowly exhaled. "I see your purpose," he said after a moment. "You are trying to upset me, in hopes that I will make a mistake that will allow you to escape with your lives. It will not work, Mr. Jane. I have you, and I will see my own purpose done."

"What purpose is that?" Lisbon said impatiently. "You still haven't told us why you've bothered with this whole elaborate charade. Why don't you just kill us and have done with it?"

"I have no intention of permitting Patrick to die just yet," Russo said coldly. "He has proven himself to be just as arrogant as always, and therefore must be taught humility. And you, dear Teresa, are going to help me make sure the lesson sticks."

"I'm not going to help you torture him any more than you already have," Lisbon said. "I've already watched him suffer enough at your hands."

"You will help me with whatever services I require as long as I have the boy," he said, assured of her cooperation at least as long as Rigsby's son was in his possession.

Lisbon cast a nervous glance at Ben, who had fallen asleep in Russo's arms, still clutching the rattle. "What is it that you want me to do?"

Russo smiled, calm once again. "Nothing quite so onerous as you are imagining, my dear. Merely this: the time has come for Patrick to know the true nature of your feelings for him. He must hear the words from your own lips, or I'm afraid he will not believe that all he hoped for could have been his all along."

"What?" Lisbon said, flabbergasted. "_That's_why you staged this whole ridiculous drama? To get me to tell Jane my _feelings_ for him?"

"Act One, Scene One: The Lovers Unite," Russo said, twirling his index finger like a miniature conductor's baton.

"Jane and I aren't lovers," Lisbon said flatly. "I don't believe this. You want us to act out some crazy soap opera for your enjoyment? For the love of God, just upgrade to a better cable subscription."

"This isn't exactly the cooperative spirit I was envisioning, Teresa," Russo admonished her. "Now, are you going to play nicely? You did say you would read your lines as they were given to you."

"What is the point of this?" Lisbon huffed impatiently. "How does me 'reading my lines' benefit you in any way?"

"The rest of the story hinges on ensuring the setup is executed properly," Russo said. "How will the audience believe our hero's suffering is genuine in Act Two: The Hero Repents, if he has nothing to lose at the beginning of the story?"

"He has nothing to repent for," Lisbon said harshly. "What did he do to you that was so terrible? A long time ago, he called you names on television. Big deal. Get over it."

"He said vile things about me for his own personal gain."

"He called you an ugly, tormented little man, and a lonely, sad soul." She met his gaze levelly. "You know why I think you're so angry at him? Because every word he said was true."

"He presumed to make a mockery of me," Russo said. "I could not allow such disrespectful conduct to go unanswered."

"He's done nothing to you but speak the truth, and you've destroyed his life in repayment for those words uttered in less than a moment," Lisbon said dismissively. "You've done more than enough to him. Leave him alone."

"I will not," Russo said coolly. "I will have my satisfaction from him."

"I've called him a jackass, a son of a bitch, and the bane of my existence, and you know what? He's never once felt the need to hurt me for those words to feel better about himself. He's a thousand times the man you are," she said scornfully.

"Patrick has taught you well," Russo said with a cold smile. "It seems you have become nearly as practiced at sleight of hand and diversionary tactics as he is. However, I will not allow you to distract me from the task at hand. You shall pay for your insolence later. Happily, your punishment will coincide with Patrick's. For now, I have a service that I require of you. You know my request. Pease proceed."

Lisbon hesitated.

He waved his hand negligently in her direction, the other still holding onto the sleeping Ben. "Tell Patrick the secrets of your heart. Tell him that truth which you've been fighting so long you can barely acknowledge it to yourself."

"He already knows," Lisbon said sharply.

"Ah, I think you're wrong there, Teresa," Russo said, clearly enjoying himself. "Even the most perceptive man has his blind spot, after all. He's buried his hope deep, ruthlessly denying himself the luxury of permitting it to rise to the surface, to see the light of day. He knows he doesn't deserve to have his hopes answered, and so he has never allowed himself to see that what he so desperately desires is already within his grasp."

Lisbon followed his gaze to Jane, who was looking back at her in mingled hope and sadness.

Russo spoke again. "My patience wears thin."

His grip on Ben tightened. Ben whimpered and woke up. He looked up at Russo in surprise and consternation to find his once friendly playmate was hurting him, and began to cry in earnest.

"Ben!" Lisbon cried. "Russo, you sick bastard, leave him alone!"

"Stopping me is entirely within your power, Teresa," he responded calmly. "All you have to do is tell Patrick how you feel about him, and I will let the boy go."

"Fine," Lisbon said desperately. "I'm in love with him, okay?"

Her words hung in the air, echoing into the near empty expanse of the theater, the truth of them reverberating back so strongly she was half afraid it had the power to knock her down. She glanced at Jane, who looked stunned. He looked half sick, half amazed. She looked away, unable to bear facing him in that moment.

Russo relaxed his grip on Ben, who continued to cry piteously. "Very good," Russo said smoothly. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Lisbon shot him a look of loathing.

Russo set Ben down on the seat next to him. "Congratulations, Teresa. You have earned young Mr. Rigsby his freedom."

Thank God. Lisbon raised her eyes heavenward in a hasty prayer of thanks.

Russo stood. "Irene. Anton. Restrain Mr. Jane, if you please," he said lazily.

Gregson and Yager emerged from the wings and grabbed Jane by the arms, effectively immobilizing him between them as Russo strolled towards the aisle.

"This hardly seems necessary," Jane commented sourly. "I've been remarkably well-behaved so far."

Russo chuckled as he made his way towards the stage, relaxed and unhurried. "I'm afraid I can't count on that trend continuing once you see what I have planned next, Patrick."

Lisbon kept her eyes on Ben, alone in the center of the auditorium, now howling with rage at being abandoned on top of the mistreatment he'd suffered so far. "What about Ben?" she asked Russo anxiously.

"He is to remain where he is, for the moment," Russo responded.

"You can't just leave him there!" Lisbon said. "He could fall out of that chair and crack his skull!"

"He will not be there long," Russo said placidly. "Don't trouble yourself about him. It's yourself you ought to be worrying about at this stage."

Gregson squeezed Jane's arm harder in anticipation, and Jane looked around at her. "Hey," he said reproachfully. "What did I ever do to you?"

For this inquiry, he was rewarded with a savage elbow to the mouth from Gregson. His lip split and bled.

Lisbon instinctively moved to help him, but Russo's voice stopped her.

"You will stay where you are, Teresa," he said calmly as he ascended the steps to the stage. "I require your assistance for the next phase of this operation."

Lisbon froze, and held her place.

"I'm going to approach you now, Teresa," Russo advised her calmly. "You will not resist me or move away as I grow closer. If you do not agree to this, one of my comrades will retrieve the boy from his seat and slit his throat. If, on the other hand, you cooperate, Benjamin will be returned to his father unharmed. Do you understand?"

Lisbon swallowed. "Yes."

"Very good." He crossed the stage, moving with feline grace. "My, you do improve on one up close, Teresa," he said admiringly, looking her up and down through half-lidded eyes as he grew nearer to her. "I begin to see what Patrick finds so irresistible about you."

Lisbon bit her lip and forced herself to stay very still as he walked slowly around her, appraising her from all angles.

Meanwhile, Lisbon was conducting her own assessment. Russo was tall and lean, but his shoulders looked powerful, and she could tell by the way he moved that he could handle himself in a fight. Her eyes flicked to the back of the theater, where at least six sentries were visible in her line of sight. Then there were Gregson and Yager off to her right, holding Jane. It was conceivable that she could incapacitate Russo temporarily, if she acted fast enough and was able to take him by surprise, but then what? One of the sentries could gun her down before she'd taken two steps towards Ben, and Jane would still be stuck here with the goons on the stage. Besides, Russo was probably on his guard for the possibility of her pulling a move like that, and if she didn't have the edge of surprise on her side, she wasn't confident the battle would end well for her. She sighed inwardly, resigned to the fact that it would probably be best to wait it out until another opportunity presented itself.

As she thought this, Russo stepped closer to her, bringing himself within touching distance.

Naturally, this was when Jane lost all sense of reason and restraint. "Stay away from her!" he shouted, struggling in vain to free himself from the iron grip of his guards.

"Patrick," Russo said calmly, without taking his eyes off Lisbon. "I need you to be quiet right now. A beautiful woman is like a work of art, and I must be allowed to appreciate this masterpiece in silence, without interruption."

"Go to hell, you son of a bitch," Jane said savagely, writhing against the hands restraining him.

"Teresa, please tell Patrick that unless he wishes to hasten that child's death, he would do well to stop prattling in my ear at this moment," Russo said politely. Lisbon looked at him in alarm.

"But you said—" Jane began.

"Shut up, Jane," Lisbon snapped.

"Lisbon—"

She cut him off. "We agreed we would do whatever it takes to get Ben free, remember?"

"Yes, but—"

Her voice was steel. "_Be. Quiet_."

Jane shut up.

Then Russo touched her.

It took everything she had not to recoil. Mindful that Ben's life depended on her keeping her promise to keep still, she restrained her natural instincts to jerk away, or better yet, clock him in the jaw for the liberty.

"Such soft skin," Russo murmured, tracing his index finger along the line of her collarbone. "I'll think I'll start here, when the time comes."

At this, Jane let out a low moan from deep in the back of his throat, but he held his tongue, and Russo let the slip pass unremarked.

He stepped closer to her and brought his hand up to brush his knuckles against her cheek.

This time she couldn't help flinching ever so slightly. Those hands had killed Angela and Charlotte Jane, and so many others; she could not hide her revulsion at being touched by them.

"So brave," Russo said softly.

He slid his hand down her neck and pressed his thumb against the side of her neck. At first, Lisbon thought he had decided to crush her windpipe rather than let her blood drain from her body as he did with his other victims, but then she realized he was measuring her pulse, feeling the blood thrum through her veins. His hand was trembling slightly, and his eyes were dilated; Lisbon could see how excited he was. His fervor was almost akin to sexual excitement, but Lisbon knew it was not her body he lusted for, but her blood.

Well to hell with him. She may not have had a lot of options at the moment, but she'd be damned before she gave him the satisfaction of seeing her shrinking away from him. Determined not to cower, she lifted her chin and met his gaze defiantly.

This seemed to please him. "You've done very well, Teresa," he told her with a smile. "You've passed the first test."

He stepped behind her and she sucked in a sharp breath as he wrapped one arm around her from behind, holding her close to him. With his other hand, he produced the long silver knife and pressed it to her neck.

"Remember," he crooned in her ear. "Be very still."

She swallowed and nodded, ever so slightly.

He raised his voice. "Masouda," he called. "Kindly bring in Mr. Rigsby, Sr. so he can retrieve his son."

One of the men in the back of the back of the theater nodded curtly, and exited the theater to do as he was bidden.

A moment later, he reappeared, shepherding a shell-shocked Rigsby into the auditorium.

Ben's cries echoed in the nearly empty theater, and Rigsby, unable to see him from his vantage point near the back of the theater, looked around frantically. His eyes darted around the theater for a sign indicating Ben's whereabouts, but when his eyes landed on the scene on the stage, he stopped dead, horror-struck.

"Welcome, Wayne," Russo called to him. "So pleased you could join us today."

Rigsby locked eyes with Lisbon. "Boss?" he said, his voice thick with tension.

"Ben's all right, Rigsby," she said quickly. "He's in the center of the middle section of seats."

Russo kept Lisbon close to his body. "You may go to him," he said to Rigsby graciously. "You will move very slowly, and you will not make any effort to disarm my friend Masouda as he accompanies you. Do you agree to abide by these terms?"

Rigsby swallowed and nodded, keeping his eye on the knife pressed against Lisbon's flesh.

"Very good," Russo said. "Masouda, kindly escort Mr. Rigsby to his son."

The guard nodded and prodded Rigsby in the back with the barrel of his gun, indicating for him to precede him down the aisle.

Rigsby walked forward in slow, measured steps until he reached the row of seats where Russo had left Ben. Ben, still crying, looked around as Rigsby drew nearer, and started crying harder. He reached his arms towards his father, nearly toppling out of the chair, and Rigsby went to him. He picked up his son and cradled him close, murmuring soft words of comfort in his ear and stroking his back to soothe him.

"As you can see, he is quite unharmed," Russo said blandly.

Rigsby shot him an incredulous look, his jaw tight with fury. He carried Ben, kicking and squirming, back to the theater aisle, where their guard awaited them.

"Masouda," Russo continued. "Take Mr. Rigsby and his child to rejoin Agent Lisbon's team outside. Remember, none of them are to be harmed. However, they must not be permitted to leave the premises or to contact any reinforcements until we are well away from here."

Rigsby looked sharply at Lisbon, unable to believe that it had truly come to this. He had his son, but now that he had him, could he really walk away from his friends, knowing that he was leaving them to certain, painful death? "Lisbon-"

Russo cut him off. "I'm afraid we haven't time for fond farewells. You will leave now." He shifted his grip on his knife and tightened his hold on Lisbon to emphasize his point.

Rigsby didn't move. "Boss," he said in a tortured voice.

Lisbon licked her lips and tried not to think about the pressure of the knife on her skin. "It's all right, Rigsby. Do as he says."

Rigsby turned to Jane. "Jane?"

Jane appeared almost catatonic, his eyes fixed on the knife against Lisbon's neck, unblinking. He did not answer.

"I grow impatient," Russo said coldly, increasing the pressure of the knife ever so slightly. The skin broke and Lisbon felt a single drop of blood trickle down her neck.

Rigsby stopped, horrified. He stared at the blood on Lisbon's neck, his feet rooted to the spot.

"Rigsby, take Ben and go," Lisbon said desperately. If he didn't take Ben, then this whole, stupid thing would be for nothing. She could do this, for Ben. But she didn't know if she could bear it if it all came to nothing in the end.

Rigsby hesitated.

"That's an order!" she said harshly.

He met her eyes for a long moment, but at last he nodded with painful understanding, and tore his eyes away. Slowly, agonizingly, he turned his back to the stage. His head bowed, he trudged back up the aisle towards the exit with Ben in his arms, his guard following behind.

Then they were gone.

Russo shifted his hold on Lisbon, keeping her close, but tucking the knife into his belt for the time being. "Well done," he said in her ear. His breath, hot against her cheek, reminded her of the smell of sour apple candy. He swept her head to one side and bent his head towards her neck to inhale the scent of her warm skin.

Lisbon tensed, wondering if now was the moment she could make her move, but no sooner had the thought crossed her mind than his grip tightened on her once again. "Ah, ah, Teresa," he chided her. "I still have Patrick, remember?"

Lisbon glanced at Jane, who grimaced. She kept her voice steady. "Well? Are you going to kill us now?"

He stroked her hair. "Not just yet."

Lisbon jerked her head away from him. "What now, then?"

He smiled. "Now, we fly."


	39. Chapter 39

Russo released Lisbon, and stepped away from her.

Lisbon released a breath, allowing herself to breathe deeply again. She touched the wound on her neck and her fingers came away sticky with blood, but she had a feeling that it looked worse than it actually was. It was only a nick, really. It hadn't hurt much—about as much as it had hurt to get her ears pierced when she was twelve. It had been her birthday, the last one she'd had while her mom was still alive, and her mother had been sitting next to her and holding her hand in the mall, smiling. Lisbon absently wiped the blood on her fingers onto the red dress.

"Now," Russo said to Lisbon and Jane. "I will permit you to stay together a little longer if you promise to be on your best behavior. What do you say? Can you promise me that?"

"We promise," Lisbon said quickly. She didn't know what was coming, but she was sure she didn't want Jane to be out of her sight for any length of time if she could possibly avoid it.

Russo looked at Jane, suspended between the figures of Gregson and Yager, his arms akimbo. "And you, Patrick? Do you promise to be a good little boy?"

Jane looked at him with pure hatred. "Yes," he spat venomously.

"If my friends release you, will you promise not to make any foolish attempts to attack me?"

Jane shot him an insolent glare. "I promise."

"I'm afraid that wasn't very convincing, Patrick," Russo said, unruffled. "You should know, however, that should you attempt to do violence to me, your efforts will not be without consequences. One of my friends will shoot you down like the dog that you are before you get within ten feet of me. They will take careful aim to ensure you are taken down, but are not killed. And then I will leave here with Teresa, and you will be powerless to stop me. Is that what you want to happen?"

"Jane." Lisbon's voice was a frightened plea. God, let him not make the stupid, reckless choice for once in his life, she prayed.

Jane looked at her and sighed. "I promise," he said, sounding defeated.

"Much better," Russo congratulated him. He walked to the edge of the stage. "I will see you both very soon."

He left them, and once he was out of sight, Gregson and Yager released Jane from their iron holds. He stumbled slightly when they let him go, and then staggered to Lisbon without giving them a backward glance.

He engulfed her in a hug the moment he reached her side, clutching her to him like a life line. She could feel his heart beating very fast in his chest. "I don't know if I can do this, Lisbon," he muttered, drawing in a ragged breath. "I don't know if I can watch him put his hands on you again."

She patted him on the back. "It's okay, Jane."

He pulled back and looked at her. "Things are decidedly _not_ okay, Lisbon." His eyes fell on her neck. "God." He licked his thumb, and scrubbed frantically at the blood clotting there.

Lisbon bore this patiently, thinking about how Russo simply touching her hair was one of the creepiest things she'd ever experienced, but Patrick Jane giving her a spit bath seemed oddly normal. "Do you think the team is really okay?" she asked in a low voice.

"Yes," he said immediately. "He's decided not to hurt them, for some reason. Not now, anyway."

"I should never have let them come with us to the theater," Lisbon said, her insides twisting with fear as she considered the implications of her mistake. "They're vulnerable out there, without any backup. If he has as many men as you say he does, he could have them surrounded."

"They're fine, Lisbon. He's not interested in them. We're the ones in real trouble, here. Worry about us."

She glanced at Yager and Gregson, who had been joined by two more cronies. "Any ideas?"

He followed her gaze and shook his head. "Not yet. I think they'll really shoot me if I try anything, and I can't risk being separated from you. We're just going to have to wing it."

"Great plan," Lisbon remarked.

"It's time to go," Gregson announced, sounding positively gleeful about this next stage of the adventure.

Jane leaned close to Lisbon. "Watch out for her," he whispered to her. "She's jealous of you."

Lisbon wrinkled her nose. "Jealous?"

Jane shrugged. "You have Russo's undivided attention right now. The thing she craves most in the world."

Lisbon glanced at Gregson, who was walking towards them. "I can handle Gregson. You concentrate on not getting shot."

Gregson, Yager, and their two new friends herded them off the stage and frog-marched them down another series of halls and stairways. Lisbon sighed inwardly. One or two, she might have been able to disarm, if she could have engineered a moment when she had the element of surprise on her side. Four, not so much. Especially not when she had Jane to worry about, constantly getting in the way and likely to plant himself firmly in the crossfire at the most inconvenient time.

Eventually, they were taken through a door that led to an underground parking lot and were shepherded over to the only car in the lot, an older model mid-size sedan with no distinguishing features whatsoever.

Yager took out a key and popped open the trunk. Jane and Lisbon stared at it, non-plussed.

Gregson snickered. "Your ride."

Jane eyed the open trunk dubiously. "The trunk, really? Kind of clichéd, don't you think?"

Yager gestured with his gun. "Get in."

"I suppose this isn't really a circumstance where 'ladies first' has quite the chivalrous connotation for which I usually aim," Jane muttered to Lisbon.

Yager pushed him roughly towards the car. "Quit wasting time."

Jane climbed into the trunk and looked up at Lisbon. "Come along, my dear. It's quite cozy in here."

Lisbon sighed, and climbed in after him. Getting in was an uncomfortable affair involving far too many knees and elbows in awkward places as they tried to arrange themselves in the small space. Once Lisbon was wedged into the trunk in front of Jane, she glared up at Gregson. "Where are you taking—"

Gregson slammed the trunk door on them without further ceremony.

"—us," Lisbon finished.

She groped around in the darkness, looking for a way out to no avail. "No escape latch," she said mournfully.

"The car's too old," Jane agreed as the car shifted slightly from the weight of several individuals getting into it at once. The car doors slammed, and the engine started up. "They didn't start being required in American cars until 2002."

The car started moving. "This is great," Lisbon huffed. "Just great. God, I am so stupid. I should have tackled one of those guards when I had the chance."

"And then done what?" Jane asked, inching closer to her. "Fought your way past the other three single-handedly?"

"I don't know," she grumbled. "But anything would have been better than letting myself get tossed into the back of a trunk like a sack of groceries."

"I don't know," he said, putting his hand on the swell of her hip and giving it a light squeeze. "It's not so bad in here."

"Are you kidding?" she said incredulously, trying not to think about the warmth of his hand searing through the fabric of the dress.

She could feel him against her back as he shrugged one shoulder. Jane was the only person she knew who could actually shrug while lying curled up on his side in the back of a trunk. "No one's pointing a gun at you, or holding a knife to your throat. At this point, I'm counting that as a win."

"We're being transported to God knows where to be slaughtered like pigs," she said flatly.

"That is exactly my point. Once we get where we're going, it's going to be beyond bad. But as long as that trunk door stays closed, no one is actively trying to kill us. So for now, we're relatively safe."

"Being trapped in a tiny metal box for an indefinite period of time is not my idea of being safe," Lisbon grumbled.

"Say what you will. All I'm saying is, I'd rather be in here with you than out there with them," he said, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her snugly against him.

"What are you doing?" she said, flinching a little at the unexpected contact. They were already jammed in here like sardines, and he wanted to be closer?

He nuzzled her neck. "Just getting more comfortable."

Lisbon turned her head slightly. "We're locked in the back of a trunk, and you think now is a good time to snuggle?"

"Certainly. This may be my last chance in the world to cop a feel- I might as well take advantage of it."

Lisbon stiffened, wondering if this was his backhanded way of bringing up the whole 'her confessing to being in love with him' thing.

That was the last thing she wanted to talk about right now. Perhaps it was cowardly of her, but she really didn't want to spend her last moments alone with Jane discussing the status of their relationship. If Jane returned her feelings—really returned them, wholly and completely—frankly, she didn't want to know about it. Not when she was about to die. If Jane told her he loved her right now, she really didn't know if she would be able to face going to the grave with any semblance of the equanimity she'd been pretending so far. She didn't want to waste her last moments on God's green earth wishing for something that she could never have. She wanted to die a hero, not a tragic heroine.

And if he didn't return her feelings—well, she didn't want to know that either.

Of course, the way he'd looked at her in that theater when she'd told Red John she was in love with him didn't exactly imply that he was entirely indifferent to her. Not to mention his bizarre monologue about her freckles when she'd been standing before him half-undressed. Her brain detoured a moment, thinking about the look he'd had on his face when she'd stepped out of her jeans. She felt her skin flush with heat at the memory of it.

Come to think of it, the way he was holding her now didn't exactly fit the bill for a completely platonic attachment, either. She decided to blame the warmth of her skin on that, if asked. It was certainly contributing to the overall effect, at the very least.

Reminding herself sternly that this line of thinking was entirely unproductive, she focused on keeping things light. "I suppose I can't really object to you adopting a 'seize the day' type of philosophy under the circumstances," she said dryly. "Just don't get any ideas about seizing anything else."

He chuckled in her ear. "Not to worry, my dear. I will keep my embrace strictly within the bounds of propriety."

"All right then," she said, settling back against him more comfortably. After all, she reasoned, there was nothing wrong with a _little_ self-indulgence before one faced the executioner's axe. And it was more comfortable. She wouldn't want to get a cramp.

He leaned over so his lips were hovering over her ear. "I have something to tell you," he announced.

"What's that?"

"Lisbon, do you know," he said conversationally, "that you have smelled amazing every single day for the past ten years?"

"What?" she said, startled.

"It's true. Even when you've tramping all over the country side looking at corpses all day, you always smell good."

Lisbon was thoroughly flustered. "Oh—stop with your nonsense."

"No, I don't think I will," he said thoughtfully. "You're going to be stuck with my nonsense until someone lets us out of this trunk, so you'd better get used to the idea."

"What idea?"

He nuzzled her hair. "The idea that now that I have you here as a captive audience, I'm going to tell you some of the things I should have told you a long time ago."

This was exactly what she didn't want to have happen. "Jane—" she said helplessly, in a desperate effort to forestall him.

"Sh," he said softly, completely undeterred. He squeezed her gently. It was a very reassuring touch. "Trust me, Lisbon."

God help her, she couldn't resist him when he asked her for anything when he spoke to her like that. "Fine," she said at last.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll only tell you things I think you will be happy to hear. Little things."

Her heart was hammering in her chest. "Such as?"

"Hm," he hummed in her ear, considering. "For one thing, I like how you're always calm under pressure, but you get flustered if anyone pays you the tiniest compliment."

She flushed. "I do not."

"You do too. It's very endearing."

"Endearing?" Lisbon repeated, as though the word were foreign to her.

"Yes. You have many endearing qualities, you know," he informed her. "For example, the fact that you dance around to the Spice Girls when you're alone in your apartment is endearing. In fact, it's utterly charming."

"How the hell do you know about that?" Lisbon said, aghast.

He smiled into her hair. "I think you'll find I know a quite a bit more about you than you're aware, my dear."

"Like what?" Lisbon demanded.

"I know you always call your brothers on their birthdays, no matter what else is going on," he said. "I know you save newspaper clippings of book reviews for Cho for books you think he'll like. And that you always buy extra donuts with sprinkles from Marie's because you know they're Rigsby's favorite."

"They're my favorite, too. Maybe I'm just buying the extra ones for myself," Lisbon said with a challenge in her voice.

He laughed. "Liar. You like the plain glazed ones."

"Ha! Shows what you know. I really like the—"

"—chocolate maple ones," Jane finished with her. "Yes, I know. They're your secret favorites. But you rarely indulge yourself with something so rich first thing in the morning, so the plain glazed ones are your normal, everyday favorites."

She sighed. "Am I really so predictable?"

"You can predict the rise and fall of the tides, the waxing and waning of the moon, the rising and setting of the sun," he pointed out. "The movement of the earth in relation to the stars. That doesn't mean they aren't worth watching. The fact that you can predict them merely ensures you won't ever inadvertently miss out on something extraordinary."

"That's a very nice way to put it," she said. "Are you sure you don't just mean that I'm boring?"

"You are never that, my dear," he assured her.

"Hm."

"Your constancy is comforting," he told her affectionately. "I like knowing that when we go to a restaurant, you will always make eye contact with the waiter when you order, and you will always leave a twenty percent tip, even if the service was absolutely abominable."

"Besides," he went on. "As predictable as you are about some things, you always retain the ability to surprise me."

"When have I surprised you?"

"At least once a day since the day I met you," he told her.

"Really?" she said skeptically.

"Yes. To name one example, I was pretty surprised when you punched me in the face on our second case together," he said ruefully. "I knew you were pissed, but I confess I didn't see that right hook coming."

"That's something, I guess," she said, feeling somewhat mollified.

"I like that tough, badass side of you," he told her. "I like the way you are polite to local sheriffs, but if they give you any crap, you aren't afraid to put them in their place. I have to admit, the sight of you smacking down chauvinistic old school cops is kind of hot." He fingered the hem of her too-short dress. "Believe me, I didn't need to see you in a red dress to appreciate your feminine side, Lisbon."

Lisbon had never heard Jane use the word hot to describe anyone, let alone her. It was very unsettling. Not to mention having his hand on her thigh. She ignored the feeling of his fingers brushing along her skin and half turned her head towards him. "Are you seriously planning to carry on like this for the rest of the time we are in this trunk?"

"Yep."

"That could be hours!" Of course, if he didn't remove his hand from her thigh soon, she might spontaneously combust before then.

He did that same half shrug against her. "It's as good a way to pass the time as any. I mean, it's not like we can play the alphabet game from the inside of a locked trunk, can we?"

"I suppose not," she acknowledged grudgingly. The alphabet game sounded a lot safer than the one they were currently playing, though.

"Now, where was I? Ah, yes," he said, sliding his hand up her side and wrapping it securely around her waist again. "I was going to tell you how I like how you insist on doing all your paperwork immediately after a case is closed, just in case another one comes up in the meantime."

"You always tell me not to do that!"

"I don't think you should do it. But I still like that _you_ think you should do it."

"You're saying you like that I'm responsible?" she said skeptically. That was a bit rich, coming from Jane.

"Just because I don't possess that quality myself, doesn't mean I don't appreciate it in others," he told her, nuzzling against her neck again. "For example, I like that when you looked around after your mother died and realized your family was falling apart, you didn't give up. You stepped up and did everything you could to look after your brothers and give your father what comfort you could despite the fact that he was one of the things that made the whole situation harder. And I like the way you protect the people on your team, no matter the cost to yourself."

She was silent, not sure how to react to the seriousness of his words. Her breath sounded loud in her own ears as she tried to calm herself down from the dual effect of the intensity of his words and the feeling of him nuzzling against her neck like that.

He cleared his throat and moved on, trying for a lighter tone. "Since we're on the subject of things I appreciate about you, I thought I should tell you I also love how you always glare at Ardiles when he uses the word 'henceforth.'"

"I do not glare at Ardiles," Lisbon protested, relieved to be on less dangerous emotional ground.

"Yes, you do. You get this pissy little glare on your face when he's being an insufferable ass. It's a very attractive look on you."

"Hmph," Lisbon sniffed. She did not glare at the assistant district attorney. That would be unprofessional. Although she did think it was ridiculous when he tried to use words like 'henceforth' in normal conversation.

"Speaking of which," he continued. "You know that teal green blouse you have? The one with the mother of pearl buttons?"

"Yeah," she said warily. "What about it?"

"It's my favorite."

"You have a favorite?" she said, perhaps more shocked by this than anything else he'd said so far.

"Yes. It's a close call between that and that wine-colored scoop-necked t-shirt you wear sometimes, but the teal green one looks amazing with your eyes. Which are plenty amazing by themselves, by the way." His voice turned serious again. "The kind of eyes a man could get lost in, if he's not careful."

Lisbon wasn't used to Jane telling her things like this. "Jane…"

"Let me do this, Teresa," he said softly. "It might be all we have left."

She swallowed. "Okay," she whispered.

Lisbon could tell this was important to him. So despite her reservations, she stayed nestled in his arms and let him recite a sweet litany of little things he'd noticed about her over the years. Lord knew Lisbon had enough firsthand experience with how observant Jane could be, but she had never realized just how closely he'd been paying attention to her all these years. Though she remained convinced it would be unwise to throw open the lid to Pandora's box entirely at this point in the game, she couldn't deny to herself that her heart secretly thrilled at each golden word that Jane let escape. She clutched each one to her heart desperately, unable to help herself. His words were nourishing a part of her that had long been neglected; after years of existing in a state of near starvation, now it was being offered a feast, and she couldn't resist consuming every honeyed morsel Jane let fall from his lips.

She closed her eyes and let his soft, sweet words wash over her as they sped down the road to their almost certain demise. Hesitantly, she brought her own hand up to cover his where it rested on her stomach. She took a deep breath, and allowed herself the luxury of savoring the feel of him, large and warm against her back, determined to appreciate every moment she had remaining to her for what it was: a precious gift from God. She might be traveling ever closer to the coldness of the grave, but after all, wasn't that always true, at some level? Right now, she had Jane curled up against her, murmuring heartbreakingly sweet things into her ear. For this moment, he was making her feel warm, safe, and loved. No one could take that away from her. No matter what happened next, she would have this moment to hold on to.


	40. Chapter 40

A/N: Only one more chapter after this! Thanks for sticking with me for the ride. I want to thank everyone for following, favoriting, and reviewing along the way. I have been awful about review replies with this story, for which I truly apologize, but please know that I really do treasure each one. Your feedback means so much to me. Thanks for reading!

A/N 2: Seems a little late to be giving out warnings, but this chapter does contain some violent content. Consider yourself forewarned.

A/N 3: I just have to thank Chiisana Minako again for being such a fantastic beta reader- you're the best!

xxxx

Jane was snuggled quite comfortably against Lisbon's small frame, so he felt the exact moment that she tensed in his arms. To this point, she had been positively relaxed in his hold.

"Do you hear that?" Lisbon said, her voice tight with tension.

Jane listened and heard the unmistakable grind and pop of tires on gravel as the car turned. "We've turned onto a gravel road," he observed. "We must be close now."

"How long do you think we've been in here?"

Jane wasn't sure. Time flew when one had a warm, complacent Lisbon in one's arms. "Two, maybe three hours?"

"Where do you think we are?"

"No clue. We'll be able to tell better when they let us out."

"Helpful."

"Lisbon, I've been locked in a trunk for over two hours," he pointed out. "How on earth would I be able to tell where we are without at least seeing something of our surroundings?"

"All I'm saying is, it will be easier to plan an escape if we know where the hell we are."

"An escape?" Jane said skeptically. "Do you really think that's even a possibility at this point?"

"Not really," she admitted. "But if there is an opportunity, I don't want to miss it. This isn't over yet."

He smiled. "My eternal optimist."

"I'm going to fight, Jane," she said quietly. "I know that we're going to be outmatched, and that the chances of us getting out of this whole situation alive are pretty much nonexistent. I'm prepared to face death, and I can accept it. But I want you to know that I won't give up. Do you understand?"

He buried his face in her hair. "I understand that you have the most beautiful, pure soul of anyone I've ever met."

He felt her flush, close enough that the warmth of her skin transferred its heat to his own. He absorbed her warmth, reveling in it. "Always with the hyperbole," she managed to say.

"I meant it," he said quietly. "You have given me so much, Lisbon. I don't think you have the faintest idea how much. I'm just sorry I never acted in a way that might have made me worthy to deserve it."

"I hate it when you talk like that," she said, exasperated. "Yes, you're a pain in the ass, but you're not the only one who has benefited from this relationship. You've given me things too."

"Ah, yes, that incipient ulcer you mentioned."

"You've given me other things, too."

Yes, like a one way ticket to a serial killer's lair, Jane thought. "Name one."

"Laughter."

Jane hadn't been expecting that. "Laughter?"

"There were a lot of late nights at the office and awful, soul-crushing cases before you came along, Jane. Most of the time, laughter was in short supply. You changed that. You saw the funny side of things, and you helped me see it, too. You went out of your way to make me smile. No one had done that for me in a long time."

"Doesn't seem like much," Jane remarked.

Lisbon smiled in the darkness. "Well, there's also the emeralds. No one else ever gave me jewelry that expensive."

"You gave them back," he pointed out.

"That doesn't mean I didn't appreciate the gesture."

"You should have kept them," he murmured into her neck. "Van Pelt wanted to keep hers, but she wanted to be like you, so she gave them back when you did."

"They really were beautiful," Lisbon sighed.

"I still have them," he informed her.

"You do?" she said, startled.

"Sure. They're in my attic."

"Why didn't you return them?" Lisbon said, scandalized.

He nuzzled her neck. "Maybe I thought someday I would be able to change your mind about keeping them."

Lisbon shivered at the feeling of him nuzzling against her neck like that yet again. He'd kept them that long? "Well, if by some miracle we actually get out of this mess alive, I'll take them," she decided.

"Really?" he said, delighted.

"Sure. I have no idea what I would ever wear them to, but that's hardly the point, is it?"

"If, as you say, by some miracle, we get out of this mess alive, I will make sure you have an occasion to which you can wear those emeralds," he said fervently. "Multiple occasions, even."

"Why is it that you sound so much more optimistic about our chances of escape now that jewelry is involved?" Lisbon wondered.

"Perhaps it's merely that your optimism is contagious. Ever think of that?"

Jane felt the car come to a gentle stop. They truly didn't have much time now.

His arms tightened around her involuntarily. "That's the greatest gift you've given me, Lisbon. Hope. The thing for which I can never, ever repay you."

She half turned in his arms. "Jane, I—"

The trunk popped open and Gregson peered down at them. Jane squinted up at her. "Do you mind? We're kind of having a moment here."

"So sorry to interrupt," Gregson said mockingly. "I'll just tell Red John you're having a moment. I'm sure he won't mind being kept waiting."

"Thank you, that would be much appr—"

Gregson grabbed Lisbon and hauled her out of the trunk. Once standing, Lisbon shook her off with a glare, and Gregson gestured for her to walk forward. Lisbon lifted her head and strode forward purposefully, looking for all the world as though she were the queen and ruler here, and Gregson nothing more than a slightly unfortunate lackey.

"—eciated," Jane finished. He climbed out of the trunk hastily, not wanting to give Red John's friends any opportunity to separate him from Lisbon if there was any earthly way to avoid it.

Yager reached for him, but he ducked under Yager's outstretched arm and caught up with Lisbon easily. He was a bit stiff from being in the trunk, but overall his journey hadn't been nearly as uncomfortable as it might have been without Lisbon to mold his frame to. He slipped his hand into Lisbon's and looked around him as Yager and the two unidentified henchmen from the parking garage closed ranks and fell into step beside them.

They were at a mountain cabin in the woods.

Jane was using the word 'cabin' loosely. He supposed the wooden monstrosity before him might be considered a cabin, if one could call a mansion a cabin merely by dint of being in the woods and being built from the timbers of pine trees. To his mind, it more closely resembled an old-fashioned hunting lodge, though some of its more modern features dated it as having been built no more than twenty years ago.

Jane breathed in the cool air. It was perhaps five to ten degrees cooler than it had been in Sacramento when they'd left it. Judging by the difference in temperature, he guessed they were at an altitude of perhaps a thousand feet higher than Sacramento's elevation of thirty feet above sea level.

Jane didn't have a chance to deduce any more than that about their location, however, because their escort herded him and Lisbon into the house without a formal tour of the grounds. What little they saw of the ground floor of the house was elegantly furnished. Here, too, they did not linger. Instead, they were ushered down a long flight of stairs at the back of the house into the basement.

Russo was waiting for them with two more henchmen in attendance. There was an air of barely suppressed excitement about him, rather like a little boy who had gotten up too early on Christmas morning and was trying to restrain his glee for the benefit of two grumpy parents who had been woken up at an ungodly hour.

"Welcome," he said, flashing his too-white teeth. "I'm so pleased you could join me here."

"Where the hell are we?" Lisbon demanded immediately.

"You are at the Cabin. It is a very special place." He spared a smile for his henchmen. "I only bring my closest friends here."

The henchmen preened under this sign of favor.

"Take them inside," Russo told his men, gesturing to a door off to one side.

That couldn't be good, Jane reflected as the guards seized him by both arms once again. He resisted on principle, knowing that once he and Lisbon went into the room that lay beyond that door, it was very unlikely that they would come out of it alive.

It was no good. Despite his twisting and squirming, he was unable to wriggle out of the iron grips of Yager and his companion.

Lisbon fared rather better.

As Gregson and a second goon stepped towards her, she watched for her opportunity. Before anyone else had time to react, she turned and dealt Gregson a swift jab to the solar plexus. Taken off guard, Gregson doubled over. Lisbon disarmed her deftly as she wheezed in pain. The other guard reached for Lisbon in a panic, but Lisbon was too quick for him. She raised the gun and shot him point blank in the chest. He dropped like a stone, dead instantly.

Lisbon didn't hesitate. Before the dead man hit the ground, she pivoted, swinging the gun around to point it at Russo, all as part of one smooth movement. Jane saw her squeeze the trigger, but Gregson, recovering, let out a shriek of rage and dealt Lisbon a powerful blow to the side of the head. Lisbon staggered to the side and her shot went wide, missing Russo by several feet. The two other henchmen sprang into action, grabbing Lisbon and wrenching the gun out of her hand.

They twisted her arms behind her back, holding her fast to prevent any future attempts at rebellion.

Russo stared at her, fascinated. He stepped over the body of his fallen servant without giving him a second glance. He stepped close to Lisbon, his eyes alight with excitement. "My, my," he said admiringly. "You almost had me there. How very thrilling."

He reached out and drew a finger down the side of her face. "You are quite the spitfire, aren't you?"

Lisbon met his gaze, her eyes snapping, but said nothing.

He chuckled. "Oh, yes. Truly, now I can see why Patrick is so drawn to you."

Lisbon drove her knee upwards, intending to knee him in the groin, but he stepped back, avoiding the kick easily. He was still smiling. "Oh, this _is_ going to be fun," he remarked.

He waved negligently to the guards. "You will take them inside now."

The guards propelled them forward, and Jane leaned close to Lisbon as they were frog-marched into the next room. "You decide not to attack when the odds are two to one, but when they're more than three to one, that's when you make your move?" he muttered under his breath.

She shrugged, unrepentant. (Well, as much as one can shrug with both arms restrained, anyway). "You saw the place. There's not much chance we're getting out of here alive," she said in a low voice. "I only had one opportunity to make a move, and I wanted to make it count. If I'm going to be killed, I'd like to have something to show for it at the end of the day. Why would I settle for a couple of minions if I had a shot at taking down the state's most notorious serial killer once and for all?"

"Well, just—" Jane trailed off as they entered the next room.

It was painted from floor to ceiling in a hue of darkest blood red.

This was the Red Room.

Jane looked around. There was no furniture in the room. Only a few support beams relieved the unrelenting flatness of the red surrounding them. These were painted red, too. Jane spotted several cleverly concealed lenses along the walls near the ceiling, and guessed they were projectors, or video cameras, or both, based on Drake's description of Hardy's clumsy imitation of his idol's methods. This was the room Hardy had used as a model for his attempt to lure Drake into the fold.

"So this is where you brainwash your followers," Jane observed, addressing Russo.

"This is where my friends first begin to find their true home," Russo corrected him. "This is where they take the first step to Exaltation." He smiled at Jane. "I can't tell you how pleased I am to have you here, Patrick."

Lisbon was looking around, unimpressed. "So did you decide to go with red because it makes it easier to hide the blood stains after you've killed someone in here?"

"I've never killed anyone here before." Russo smiled at her. "You will be the first."

"It's so nice to be special," Lisbon said sarcastically.

"You are that, Teresa," he said softly. "Never doubt it."

He surveyed the room, considering. After a moment, having made his choice, he crossed to the middle of the room. "You will bring Teresa here," he said, beckoning to her captors.

They dutifully brought her to the spot indicated, the disgruntled Gregson trailing after them.

Russo took several steps away. He tilted his head to one side, appraising Lisbon from where he stood. "Yes, this is the perfect spot," he said, almost to himself. "Close, but just out of reach. An excellent view." He raised his voice. "Patrick, you will stand here."

The two men holding Jane dragged him over to where Russo stood.

Russo stepped out of the way, walking back towards Lisbon. "She really is lovely, Patrick," he remarked. "Tell me, now that you see her like this, do you regret that she never dressed up like this just for you?"

Jane looked away and didn't answer.

"God, what is the point of this?" Lisbon burst out. "He doesn't care what I'm wearing. You're the only one who seems to find all this amusing. What is this obsession you have with making him miserable?"

"As I said," Russo said coolly. "He presumed to make a mockery of me."

"It's not his fault you have self-esteem issues," Lisbon said, unsympathetic. "Ever try looking inward instead of always casting about for someone else to blame your problems on?"

"I have few problems which cannot be dispatched with a simple command or a sharp blade," Russo said sharply.

Lisbon shook her head. "I don't think so. If that were true, Jane and I wouldn't be here. You'd be content playing your little games with your usual playmates—you'd be happy being king of the playground. But that's not enough, is it? The truth is, you need Jane. You used his insults towards you as an excuse for your insistence on toying with him, but that's not why you've held onto him so long."

"I refuse to suffer criticism from those who are less than me," Russo said tightly.

"So you took your revenge," Lisbon agreed. "You destroyed his life. Why not let it go at that? Better yet, why not just kill him, and have done with it years ago? Why prolong the game?"

Russo didn't answer.

"He fascinates you, doesn't he?" Lisbon said knowingly.

Russo looked at Jane. Jane stared back at him, eyes wide. He was unsure where Lisbon was going with this, but he was determined to stay silent, unwilling to upset the precarious balance Lisbon had struck as long as Russo wasn't actively hurting her. "I recognize something in him that we share," Russo said at last.

"What's that?" Lisbon wanted to know.

"Hunger," Russo responded, sounding almost reverent. "An unwillingness to be satisfied by the common." He nodded to Jane. "Patrick has that hunger. It was one of the first things I noticed about him."

He regarded her. "You do not. You have a different kind of hunger. A more common longing for love and acceptance. And perhaps even more than that, for purpose in your life."

"Interesting interpretation," Lisbon remarked. "I don't think he hungers for the same things you do, though. He's never killed someone for pleasure."

"Pleasure? Perhaps not. But personal gratification? He has done that. He killed dear Timothy without a moment's hesitation when he thought Timothy was me." He watched Lisbon closely. "That smarted, didn't it? After all you'd done for him, all the faith you'd placed in him, and he didn't even hesitate? There you were, on the other end of the line, shot. Because of him and his plan. Did he even wait five minutes after you'd been hurt before he turned around and shot a man in cold blood for his precious revenge?"

Lisbon refused to rise to the bait. "At this point, to be honest, I'm just sorry he didn't get you for real back then," she said coldly.

"There was very little chance of that, I'm afraid," Russo said with an air of indifferent amusement. "Poor Patrick. He always does seem to be two steps behind when it comes to unraveling my little puzzles."

"But you still can't let him go," Lisbon persisted. "You've grown dependent on him. You know what I think?"

He arched one elegant brow. "Do tell."

"I think you aren't going to be able to kill him at all," Lisbon said. "I think you need him. You need the battle between you to give you a sense of self, to give you a sense of purpose. Because without him, you run the risk of drowning in your own thoughts with no one to distract you from them."

Russo's fingers twitched. He didn't look so amused now—he was angry. "Time will tell, Teresa. But you… I will not have any trouble spilling your blood. We'll see if you have such a smart mouth once I have had my fun with you." He stepped closer to her, and wrapped strong fingers around her neck. "You know what I'm most looking forward to?" he whispered.

Lisbon gagged a little as he applied pressure to her windpipe with one hand. "What's that?" she gasped.

He tightened his grip slowly, but unrelentingly. "Listening you beg him to help you, and seeing the looks in the eyes of both of you when you realize that there is absolutely nothing he can do to stop me." He released her suddenly and Lisbon's head fell forward as she sucked in several lungfuls of air, trying to recover her breath.

Russo turned to his followers. "You will leave us now," he said abruptly.

Gregson looked crushed. "But… you said we could watch."

"You will leave," he snapped.

Gregson looked at Lisbon with loathing. "They're dangerous."

"Leave that to me," he said impatiently. "You will bind them before you go, and then you will leave us."

With ill grace, Gregson did as she was bidden. She produced a pair of zip ties and roughly bound Jane to a support beam, his hands cinched tightly together behind his back with the thick plastic ties. She did the same to Lisbon, her mouth twisting with vindictive pleasure when Lisbon winced slightly as the ties pinched her skin.

When she was finished, Gregson and the other cronies left, none so reluctantly as Gregson herself. She cast a doleful glance behind her as she pulled the door closed behind them, clearly disappointed to be missing out on the fun.

Russo watched them leave. Once they were gone, he drew in a deep, cleansing breath. "And now," he said, turning back to Lisbon. "We will feed _my_ hunger."

"That hunger you speak of," Lisbon said slowly, watching him warily. "It's changed, over the years, hasn't it? It started out so simply, killing young women. Women you found attractive. You didn't know how to act on that attraction, though. Killing them was the only way you knew how to feel close to them."

"There's no way to be closer to a woman," Russo rejoined, tracing his index finger down the side of her neck. "What could be more intimate than feeling life's blood drain from their bodies?"

Lisbon jerked her head away. "That intimacy wasn't enough, was it?" she said shrewdly. "After awhile, it wasn't as satisfying as it used to be."

"It's to be expected," Russo said. "It was too easy, after awhile. One does need new challenges to stay stimulated, after all."

"So you turned to the revenge game," Lisbon concluded. "You'd already tried it with Kellan Howard, and that had been every bit as satisfying as you'd hoped. And it wasn't easy. It would be that new challenge you sought. So you started to think about who else had done you wrong, over the years, to see if you could recapture that feeling. That was when you started to think about taking revenge on Tom Cassidy and Noah Plaskett. That was when your hunger changed."

Jane, desperate to distract Russo's attention away from Lisbon, picked up the narrative here.

"Deep down, you were still a little scared of Cassidy and Plaskett, weren't you? They'd stood up to you once, and they might do it again, if they discovered your plan. So you decided to build a network of followers to help you, to keep you removed from the dangers of discovery. And that was its own challenge in and of itself, wasn't it? Finding men and women to follow you, the time and effort it took to persuade them to follow your will. It prolonged the game, kept you entertained while you waited for your opportunity. You placed one of your followers in San Angelo to help you identify that opportunity. And it worked. You killed Tom Cassidy, and got Hardy elected as sheriff. But still, it wasn't enough. Cassidy's death was disappointing, wasn't it? A let down."

"Cassidy was hardly a worthy challenge," Russo sniffed.

Lisbon interjected once again. "Luckily for you, that was when Jane came onto the scene. Here's this handsome, charismatic guy who reminded you of yourself. You could see at once he was used to being the cleverest person in the room. And conveniently, he happened to insult you on national television. You had a perfect new victim. But he was too interesting to kill, wasn't he? So you killed his family instead, to see what he would do."

Russo was watching Jane with something almost like nostalgia. Jane looked back at him with an expression like stone, letting Lisbon carry on with the story as long as Russo's focus was on him.

"And he fell apart," Lisbon continued. "That was fascinating to you, wasn't it? Watching him unravel. But then he put himself back together and he was even more interesting to you, because now he was obsessed with bringing you down. No one else ever came close to succeeding at that task, did they? Because you're the king of the jungle. The tiger from the Blake poem."

She fixed her gaze upon him, boring her green eyes into his as he turned to look back at her. "It gets lonely up there at the top of the food chain, doesn't it? Not after you found Jane, though. Once you had him, you finally had an enemy strong enough to face you on your own terms. Even a companion, of sorts. An opponent worthy of your mental acumen."

Russo smiled sardonically. "Been reading up on your classic poetry, have you, Teresa? I'll remind you that no one ever defeats the tiger, in the end. He remains a symbol of dark and dangerous beauty."

"Tyger, Tyger, burning bright," Lisbon recited. "You know, when I first heard about you quoting that poem to Jane, I figured you were just an egomaniac, enamored of his own mystique. But that's not exactly right, is it?"

Russo raised his eyebrows. "You have a new theory now? Please," he said dryly. "Enlighten us with your interpretation of the works of the great William Blake."

"'What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?'" she quoted. "That's the question it all comes back to, isn't it? How could God have created a creature like you?"

"There is no God," Russo said harshly. "It is a beautiful poem, nothing more."

"Yes. Your favorite poem. A story without resolution. That's the point." She looked at him almost pityingly. "You have no idea who you are, do you?"

Russo's fists clenched at his sides. "I am the man who will destroy you both, in the end. I _have_ destroyed you. You are only here at my mercy."

"More scare tactics and bluster," Lisbon said without heat. "I suppose I shouldn't expect anything better. Not from you. You've cast about for something to cling to all your life. Your career, the killing, then hypnosis, revenge and the development of a cult following… you're like a teenager who can't decide which tie to wear to prom."

Russo looked at her sharply. "I evolve, as we all must."

"You aren't evolving," Lisbon said dismissively. "You're turning in every direction looking for answers."

She nodded to Jane. "And now you've pinned all your hopes on Jane. You've never met anyone before who challenged you. If you can take him apart, learn to understand him, maybe you can finally know yourself."

"He's like me," Russo told her. "I recognize myself in him."

"He's nothing like you," Lisbon contradicted him.

"Isn't he? We both have our demons, after all."

"He's not a coward and a bully," Lisbon said forcefully. "He's willing to risk everything for the people he loves. Everything you do is to serve yourself."

"He is the same arrogant, self-aggrandizing confidence man he's always been," Russo snarled. "You're just too blind to see it, because you fell for his tricks, too."

Lisbon shook her head. "He's changed. You haven't. Your hunger, as you call it, has changed and grown over the years, but you yourself haven't changed at all. You're still that same scared little boy you were when you lost your mother, too clever and too self-indulgent for your own good."

"Lisbon—" Jane began, fearful of what would happen if she succeeded too well in provoking him, but Lisbon overrode him.

"He knows that his wife and daughter were the best part of him, and he's chosen to carry them with him every day, to keep them alive in him. You, on the other hand, ran away from the one good thing you ever had in your life."

Jane had no idea what she was talking about, and Russo, too, looked blank. "Just what is this one good thing you imagine I've run away from?" Russo asked curiously.

"Rosalind." Lisbon said simply.

Russo's expression changed. "Don't mention her name," he hissed.

Lisbon ignored the directive. "She wasn't part of your plan, was she? At first I thought you targeted her for a specific reason, but that wasn't it, was it? You really did come across her by accident. And once you found yourself in her home, in her heart, you found you didn't want to leave. You were your best possible self when you were with her. But you threw it away because you were afraid of letting her see your dark secrets. You weren't willing to give up your little hobby for her. You were too scared to find out who you could be, without that to define you."

"She was an amusing diversion." He tried to sound offhand, but fell short of the mark.

"You were in love with her," Lisbon said calmly.

"I desired her, nothing more," Russo corrected her, and Lisbon almost believed him. Almost. "She was a beautiful jewel that I wished to possess. I enjoyed my time with her, but I had other pursuits to follow. New heights to ascend. She was a distraction I couldn't afford. True mastery of one's self requires focus and discipline."

"True mastery of one's self," Lisbon repeated, not buying it. "If you ask me, you're a long way from that. You kill off your followers when they displease you, even when they could still help you, and call it a 'needed sacrifice.'" She shook her head. "You should have stuck with Rosalind. You'd have been far better off. You never learned impulse control at all, really. You've just learned damage control."

"Call it what you will," Russo said. "I've eluded you and your comrades in law enforcement this long, haven't I?"

"Yeah, by hiding yourself like a little boy," Lisbon said scornfully. "But your little drama class here is destined to be the last bit of fun you ever experience. Because we've caught you."

He arched an eyebrow. "It would seem that it is I who caught you, my dear."

"True," Lisbon said, unmoved. "You won this round. You've got me and Jane. But we'll win in the end. You know why?"

He indulged her. "Why is that?"

"Because we outnumber you," she told him. "If you kill me and Jane, it doesn't matter. Our side will always win because there will always be more people like us ready to step up to fight people like you. We know who you are now. You're done. We will win because you're stuck moving in the shadows. We move freely in the daylight and at night, we can always shine more light into the darkness."

He made a violent movement towards her, as though determined to quash the triumph in her voice through physical means, but before he reached her, there was a sharp knock, and the red door opened.

Russo turned, infuriated at the interruption. "I do not wish to be disturbed right now," he snarled.

Yager, the unhappy messenger, ducked his head. "Sorry, sir. One of the alarms went off near the perimeter. We thought you ought to know."

"Whatever it is, take care of it," Russo ordered frostily. "You have been trained for such an event, have you not? I am not to be disturbed again, do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," Yager said. He retreated, and closed the door behind him.

Russo turned back to Jane and Lisbon. "Now, where were we?"

"Lisbon was just telling you how we'd defeated you," Jane said helpfully.

"Ah, yes," Russo said, his lip curling. "Well. Comfort yourselves with those words if you can, but the fact remains that I have you in my power. You will not escape my hold, now that I have you in my grasp." He breathed in deeply. "Story time is over. I'm ready for the main event."

He approached Lisbon once again, more controlled this time. "Watch closely, now, Patrick," he instructed. Without fanfare, he drew out his long silver knife, and slashed Lisbon once along the long, graceful arc of her collarbone.

Jane went crazy. "Lisbon!" he shouted, writhing against the ties that bound him. "Don't touch her, you son of a bitch!"

He was crying, he realized. He wriggled and squirmed and raged and fought with everything that was in him, but he could not free himself from the zip ties. God dammit, he thought, tears rolling down his face. If only he'd been bound in handcuffs instead, he would have been able to escape in a moment. Now, it seemed that the more he struggled, the more tightly the ties constricted his wrists.

Russo chuckled at Jane's distress. He had regained his equilibrium now that he was the one in control again.

Lisbon kept her cool. The cut wasn't deep—a flesh wound, nothing more. "I'm okay, Jane," she said, in a vain attempt at reassuring him. She was worried he was going to dislocate his shoulder if he kept fighting his ties like that, twisting and writhing like a crazy person.

"Don't tell him such lies, Teresa," Russo said. "Even if you are now, you won't be for long."

Lisbon raised her eyebrows, determined not to show weakness until she couldn't bear it anymore. So far, she'd proven she could handle one shallow cut above her breastbone. She thought she could take quite a bit more, before she broke. In the meantime, she had one more play to make, and the only chance she had of making it work was to continue her careless defiance and not let him have the satisfaction of seeing her fear. "No? Won't it be more boring for you, if it ends too soon?"

"I trust it will feel long enough, to you, my dear," he said silkily. "I expect you will be begging me to end it once and for all rather sooner than you think."

Lisbon ignored this. "I'm just saying, everything else is going to be a bit of a letdown after this, isn't it? Face it, you're going to have trouble topping this in terms of entertainment value. Your next kill is bound to be a bit of a disappointment in comparison."

He flashed his teeth at her. "That's why I plan to prolong this particular event as long as possible."

"So what's your plan?" Lisbon asked conversationally. "Usually you subdue your victims with a taser, don't you?"

"A necessary precaution," Russo acknowledged. "When they fight back, there is always a chance they might inflict enough damage to leave some evidence behind."

"You're obviously not worried about that here," Lisbon observed. "You're not even wearing gloves. You plan to dispose of our bodies somewhere where there's no chance they could be recovered and examined for evidence."

"Usually I am forced to work within certain time constraints. Happily, here, on my own land, I have the luxury of taking my time." He stroked her arm, and drew the tip of the knife softly along the length of her upper arm.

"Lisbon!" Jane cried again, his voice full of despair.

Lisbon ignored Jane and the sound of drops of her blood hitting the floor. The cut stung, but again, it wasn't deep. It appeared he was serious about taking his time. If he continued on like this, it would be a very long time indeed before he inflicted enough damage to actually end her life. For now, though, he hadn't severed any nerves or muscle tissue, which was the main thing she cared about at the moment. She focused on keeping her voice cool and unaffected. "Wouldn't it last longer if you made it a fair fight? I mean, won't it be more satisfying for you if you can feel me struggling against you when the life drains out of me?"

Russo looked intrigued. "You really wish to engage in a physical altercation with me?"

"I almost had you, before. What was the word you used? Didn't you find it thrilling?" she pressed.

He looked amused. "You think you can beat me?"

She shrugged. "Maybe not. But at least I'd have a chance. Think about it from my perspective. Obviously I'm hoping I'll win the fight. But if I don't, there's always the possibility that I'll be able to force you to make a move that will kill me quickly and cleanly instead of the prolonged torture you apparently have in mind. And if not, at least I won't be any worse off than I was before."

"An interesting proposition," Russo commented. He looked at her, considering. Jane could tell he was tempted. Russo weighed the risk that she might actually be able to get the better of him. Apparently, he must have dismissed this as only the remotest possibility, however, because after a moment's consideration, he said finally, "Very well. I accept your proposal."

Jane couldn't blame him for liking his chances. Lisbon was a cop, and Jane had a tremendous amount of faith in her ability to defend herself, but Russo had a knife, and Lisbon was unarmed. Besides which, Russo had size and military training on his side. Lisbon, on the other hand, was probably somewhat worse for the wear after having been locked in a trunk for over two hours and having already felt the cut of a knife three times so far in the course of the day.

Russo walked around behind her. "You will wait to face me before you attack. I will not strike until then," he said graciously.

"Deal," Lisbon agreed.

He leaned in and sliced the ties binding her wrists.

Lisbon looked over her shoulder and rubbed her chafed wrists, keeping her movements slow and deliberate. She gestured to her consultant, tied to another support beam not far from them. "Can I say good-bye to Jane?"

"Go ahead," Russo said magnanimously.

No doubt the idea of witnessing a tearful good-bye appealed to his sense of theater, Jane thought furiously.

He turned his attention to Lisbon. She was doing marvelously, he thought. Outwardly, she seemed calm and collected. Only the slightest trembling of her hands gave her away as being the least bit nervous. He doubted whether anyone else in the world knew her well enough to see past her poker face in this last, critical moment.

Lisbon met his eyes and walked towards him. Halfway to him, she stumbled a little, teetering dangerously on the hated red heels.

Jane frowned. He didn't care what kind of shoes she was wearing- this was a curiously graceless movement for the athletically gifted Lisbon.

Cursing, she stooped and pulled off the offending shoes, tossing them to one side. She straightened and closed the remaining distance between them in three purposeful strides, wrapping her arms around his torso and pressing herself close to him. He screwed up his face and buried his nose in her hair, bitterly regretting that he couldn't wrap own arms around her and return the embrace.

She turned her head and lay her cheek against his chest. He felt something crack and break inside him.

Then she stood on tiptoe and pressed a long, lingering kiss to his jaw, just by his ear. "I'll hold him off as long as I can," she breathed.

Jane frowned into her hair. As parting words, they weren't doing much for his morale. Was a simple 'I love you' so much to ask for? Before he had even finished the thought, her fingers found his where they were tied behind his back, seeking to open his clenched fists. Jane opened his hands to her and hooked his pinky over hers, desperate to maintain his connection with her with even so tenuous a hold.

It was only when she pressed a small, hard object into his palm that he realized what she'd done. She'd faked the whole thing, he realized in shock. She hadn't stumbled- she had pretended to trip as a pretext to disguise the movement of extracting the pocket knife concealed in her bra. The pocket knife which she had just slipped into his hand.

"Act fast," she instructed him in a whisper that caressed his cheek where her lips had just been. She squeezed his hand over the knife and released him.

Then she turned around and faced Red John.

Jane stood there dumbstruck for a full five seconds before he processed the significance of what Lisbon had done. A knife. She had given him a knife. A means of cutting his way free. She'd given him a method of improving the odds in their favor.

He hastily fumbled to unfold the knife, nearly dropping it in his eagerness. His hands were clumsy and clammy as he tried to prise the blade from its casing. He forced himself to calm down, to move slowly and deliberately so he wouldn't drop this precious prize.

Lisbon stepped away from Jane and approached Russo slowly. Russo's eyes were alight with anticipation. She did not attack; instead, she and Russo circled each other warily, sizing each other up.

Russo made the first move.

He stepped forward, slashing downwards with his knife, but Lisbon sidestepped it, avoiding the downward thrust. She offered no counterattack, however, knowing that to bring herself close enough to land a blow against him would leave her dangerously exposed if he managed to recover himself more quickly than she anticipated. Her goal now was to prolong the combat as long as possible, which could be most effectively achieved through evasive maneuvers.

Jane pried the blade open.

Lisbon dodged another slash of the knife.

Jane frantically started to saw at the plastic ties but the angle was awkward and he couldn't get any purchase. The blade slipped and ended up flat against the edge of one tie.

Russo struck at Lisbon again, but she twisted to one side and avoided the knife once again. This time, he'd overcommitted with the move and Lisbon took advantage of him being temporarily off balance, darting forward and striking him with a forceful jab to the ribs. He hissed in displeasure and staggered to the side, his free hand fluttering to his ribs for a moment before he straightened and repositioned himself. He seemed more surprised than angry that Lisbon had actually managed to land a blow against him. Jane supposed that made sense. Russo was so used to controlling the risk in his usual methods of killing that he wasn't accustomed to the need to react quickly to a physical attack.

Lisbon didn't press her advantage. She fell back and assumed a boxer's stance, stepping lightly on the balls of her feet with her arms up in a defensive position.

Jane shifted his grip on the knife and angled the blade away from him, finally finding an angle which would allow him to apply the pressure he needed to sever the plastic restraints.

Russo drew himself up and centered himself once again.

The limited range of motion enforced by the ties meant that Jane could only rotate his wrists by a matter of degrees. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he drew the blade up and down as he attempted to cut through the ties.

Russo feinted with the knife, but then changed course and lashed out with the fist of his other hand instead.

Lisbon jerked her head back, but she wasn't quite fast enough and Russo landed a glancing blow against her jaw.

Dear God, Jane thought desperately. Was this the dullest knife in the world? He knew Lisbon was meticulous about cleaning her guns regularly—if by some miracle they actually got out of this nightmare alive, he was going to have words with her about the critical need to keep all her weaponry as well maintained as her firearms. Would it have killed her to sharpen the damn thing before marching off to confront a sociopath?

Russo followed the punch to the jaw with another swing at her head, but Lisbon danced out of the way, narrowly avoiding a blow to the temple.

Maybe it wasn't the knife, Jane thought in despair as he frantically continued to saw at his restraints. Maybe these were just the thickest plastic ties known to man, fortified with some special unknown substance with the properties of steel.

Russo lunged at her, apparently planning to tackle her to the ground so he could subdue her with sheer physical size and strength, but Lisbon anticipated his intent and leaped to the side. His momentum carried him past her. Taking advantage of their new positions in relation to one another, she pivoted smoothly on one foot and delivered a powerful roundhouse kick to the small of his back, her foot catching him sharply in his left kidney.

Russo roared in pain and fury. He turned and came at her again, less controlled this time. Lisbon ducked another blow and yet again managed to evade the knife.

Jane was close now. Very close.

Russo was no longer amused. He prowled like a cat stalking its prey, assessing Lisbon for signs of weakness. Jane could see he had underestimated her. He'd probably assumed he could use the altercation as another opportunity to toy with her for his own amusement. He hadn't expected to have to actually expend a significant amount of effort to subdue a woman half his size, no matter how well trained she was. He focused now, determined to win his prize.

He slashed at her again, once, twice, three times. Lisbon jumped out of the way for the first and second, but on the third pass she wasn't quite fast enough and she was forced to rock back on her heels to avoid the knife. The movement put her off balance.

Russo's lips curled in a grimace of cruel satisfaction at having forced her into making such a critical mistake. He cuffed her on the side of the head with his free hand, and Lisbon stumbled sideways for real this time. He grabbed her around the neck with one hand and flung her down on the ground. Lisbon tried to get up, or at least scramble out of reach, but he had her now. He stooped and pressed one knee to her chest, not resting his entire weight there, but applying enough pressure to prevent her from being able to get up no matter how much she struggled, pinning her there like a butterfly to a scientist's mounting board. Tragically immobile, with beautiful wings outstretched.

Now that he had her where he wanted her, Russo's movements became slow and lazy again. He had time now to savor every moment of her distress. He took hold of her hair and tilted her head back, exposing the smooth white column of her neck, stark against the backdrop of red, red, red. The silver of the knife glinted in the light as he raised it languidly, considering where to apply it first.

Success. Jane felt the last sliver of plastic give way, and the zip ties broke open with a soft snap. He was free.

There was no plan. No finesse. The instant he broke free, Jane ran at Russo at full tilt, intent on nothing but making absolutely sure that knife did not meet its intended target.

Jane felt his entire skeleton rattle from the impact as he slammed into Russo's body, tackling him to the ground.

Russo grunted in surprise as they crashed to the ground together. Cursing, he half rose and turned his murderous gaze on Jane. Jane, slower off the mark, stared up at him, eyes wide. The tiny knife was still clutched in his hand and he raised the pitiful object to defend himself. Russo had dropped his own knife when Jane tackled him, but he did not seem remotely fearful at the prospect of being unarmed while Jane faced him down with a blade of his own. Infuriated at Jane's unexpected interference, Russo knocked the knife from his grasp with a single blow. The pocket knife went skittering across the floor, beyond the reach of any of the combatants. Jane tried to lever himself up, but Russo punched him in the face, sending him back to the floor in a heap and nearly dislocating his jaw.

Lisbon meanwhile, scrambled for the other knife on the floor.

Turning with a snarl, Russo backhanded her with enough force to knock her down again. This threat summarily dispatched, he turned back to Jane.

Jane didn't think. He snatched up the silver knife. As Russo bore down on him, he drove the knife upwards, under Russo's breastbone, and didn't stop until he felt the tip of the knife pierce the soft mass of his beating heart.


	41. Chapter 41

For an instant, Russo stared at Jane in shock, eyes wide with surprise. Jane yanked the knife out of his chest, prepared to strike again if necessary. Before he could, however, Russo let out a soft hiss of breath and then, with no further fanfare, his eyes went still and fixed.

He slumped forward, landing in a graceless heap on top of Jane. Jane dropped the knife on the floor and grunted in surprise as the weight of his enemy fell on him. He lay there for a moment beneath the other man's body, stunned. It was done. After ten long years, he'd done what he'd set out to do. He blinked at the red ceiling, unable to believe that it was over. That he and Lisbon were still alive, and Red John was really dead after all these years.

"Jane!" Lisbon's voice was frantic.

"I'm okay," he said faintly.

Lisbon unceremoniously heaved Russo's body off of him, shoving it off to one side without so much as a second glance as she focused on Jane. She blanched when she looked at him, his shirt soaked in red. "My God, Jane," she said, sounding desperate. Her hands went to his chest and stomach, her fingers worming their way under his shirt and vest to explore the flesh of his torso. Jane thought idly that it felt rather nice to have her touching him this way, but then he realized Lisbon was examining him for evidence of injury.

"I'm okay, Lisbon," he repeated.

"You're covered in blood," she said, her fingers still searching for the source of the blood.

"It's is all his," he informed her. He struggled to a sitting position. "I'm not hurt."

She let her forehead drop to his shoulder. "Thank God."

Jane lifted her chin with his fingertips and stared at her, eyes wide. He cupped her cheek in his hand. "You're alive," he said wonderingly, feasting his eyes on her.

"_We're_ alive," she corrected him.

"You were amazing," he said fervently. He felt giddy with relief. They'd really done it. They'd killed the monster, slain the dragon. And he had Lisbon to thank for it. Beautiful, strong, breathing Lisbon.

She shook her head. "I was lucky. He was a better fighter than me. The only reason I'm still alive at all is that he was determined to take his time killing me." She shuddered. "Like a cat playing with its food."

"Lisbon, you held off an experienced killer who was twice your size, and who had a knife, while you were bleeding and unarmed. Not to mention the fact that you managed to slip me that pocket knife right under his nose. I maintain that you are amazing."

"I couldn't have done it without you. You saved me at the end."

Jane shook his head. "You saved us both. I can't believe you got us out of that."

"We're not out of it yet," she reminded him. "We're still trapped inside a building with God knows how many of Russo's followers, and we have no idea where we are."

"That's a very glass half-empty way to look at it," Jane commented.

"Jane, we killed Red John. The man who, as you put it, addicted his followers to his affection and approval. Somehow I don't think they're going to let us just walk out of here."

"Don't be such a spoilsport, Lisbon. I'm sure we can handle a few minions, after what we've just accomplished. We defeated Red John. He'll never bother us again. Don't you want to take a moment to savor our victory?"

"I want us to get the hell out of here. We can celebrate once we're safe again."

He sighed. "What do you suggest?"

Lisbon looked around the empty room. "We'll have to hide behind the door and try to take them by surprise when they come to check on us. I'll have to disarm at least one of them if we're going to have any shot at getting out of here alive."

"Might not be for awhile," Jane pointed out. "Russo told them not to interrupt. They're not going to want to risk incurring his wrath unless they absolutely have to. It could be ages before it occurs to them that something might be wrong."

Lisbon shook her head. "No choice. We'll be too exposed if we try to leave the room without knowing what we're walking into. And we have to move away from this spot. We're sitting ducks sitting here in the middle of the room like this."

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the door swung open and the barrel of a very large gun nosed its way into the room.

Jane and Lisbon both started and clutched at each other instinctively. Jane surreptitiously angled his body so he was between Lisbon and the door and looked up at their would be assailant.

It was Cho.

The muzzle of the gun dropped. "Oh, good," Cho said, his voice as expressionless as ever as he took in the sight of them huddled together on the floor. Only his eyes betrayed the slightest flicker of emotion. "You're still alive."

Without waiting for a response, he turned his head to address several people in black Kevlar who were crowding in behind him. "We're clear," he called over his shoulder. "They're alive."

Lisbon's jaw had dropped nearly to the floor. "What are you doing here?" she said, flabbergasted.

"We came to rescue you." Cho glanced at the body on the floor. "Guess we're a bit late on that score."

"I'd say you're right on time," Jane said. "You saved us the trouble of fighting our way past an unknown number of armed guards and hoofing it into the woods to make our escape on foot in unknown terrain- how many of Russo's followers are here in the house, anyway?"

"About twenty, give or take," Cho answered. "All armed to the teeth. They weren't expecting us, though, and we took most of them without too much trouble. Gregson's dead, and a few others, but we took the rest of them alive."

Lisbon got up and crossed the room as the members of the SWAT team started to edge past Cho and make their way into the room to secure the scene. One of them stooped and pressed two fingers to Russo's neck, checking for a pulse. "Suspect is dead," he announced.

Jane looked over at the body, still unable to quite believe Red John was really gone. That he truly couldn't hurt them, or anyone else, for that matter, ever again.

Cho looked at Lisbon. "Sorry we didn't get here earlier, boss."

Lisbon put her arms around Cho's neck and hugged him. "I'm just happy to see you," she said sincerely.

Distracted from his contemplation of Red John's body, Jane turned his attention to Lisbon. Oh, sure, he thought grumpily. Cho shows up at the eleventh hour with a team of armed men and gets a hug. After being by her side for the whole ordeal, all Jane got was a cursory examination for injuries.

He was going to have to change that, he thought. Soon.

Cho hugged her back. "Me, too."

Jane got up and joined them as Lisbon released her second in command. "How the hell did you find us?" she wanted to know.

"Van Pelt's list," Cho responded. "This was one of the properties listed in her search results."

"There were over twenty properties on that list. How did you know which one we were being taken to?"

Cho grimaced. "We guessed."

Lisbon stared at him. "You guessed?"

He nodded. "We didn't know what to do. Rigsby told us Russo said he was taking you somewhere else, so we knew he wasn't going to kill you at the theater. We had Van Pelt's list of search results, but we had no clue which one he might have taken you to. Van Pelt said that if Jane were there, he would have figured out a way to narrow it down. She said we needed to think like Jane. So that's what we did."

Jane was flattered. "Do tell. How did you manage such a feat?"

Cho ignored his superior tone. "Fourteen of them were in major metropolitan areas, and ten of those were office buildings. We couldn't see him taking you to an office building, and tactically speaking, it would be easier to transport you, kill you, and get rid of your bodies without being detected in a less populated area, so we eliminated those first thing. That left nine properties."

"How did you narrow it down from there?" Lisbon asked.

"By then we were really desperate. Rigsby said if he were Russo, he wouldn't want to drive too far. He figured after waiting so long to get his hands on you, Russo wouldn't want to wait any longer than he had to for his real fun to begin. So we excluded properties that were over four hours away. That took care of another six."

"How did you know which of the three remaining ones he'd taken us to?"

"We didn't. But Van Pelt remembered Jane mentioning Hardy visiting his uncle's cabin in Redding, and one of the properties had a Redding address. We didn't have anything else to go on, so that was the one we picked."

"But how could you be sure you picked the right one?" Lisbon persisted.

Cho shook his head. "We weren't sure. We took our best guess and bet the farm."

Jane clapped him on the shoulder. "Hell of a guess. Well done."

"So we're in Redding?" Lisbon said.

"Not in Redding proper," Cho answered. "This place is on the side of a mountain, overlooking Lake Shasta."

"Is Ben okay?" Lisbon asked.

"Ben's fine. He's with his mom now, and about half a dozen armed guards."

"Rigsby didn't stay with them?"

Cho shook his head. "He wanted to come."

"What happened after Rigsby left the theater with Ben?" Jane asked.

"After you guys went inside, it was pretty bad. Rigsby was freaking out. Van Pelt tried to get closer to the theater to get a better look at what was going on, but before she'd taken three steps towards it, someone fired a shot at her. They couldn't have been aiming at her—it missed by a mile. It was a warning shot, telling us not to come any closer. So we took cover behind the car and were forced to wait there without any idea what was going on. Finally one of them called to Rigsby and told him to come inside. That was pretty bad, too. Rigsby went inside and Van Pelt and I were stuck there wondering if we were ever going to see any of you again."

"When Rigsby came out, he had Ben, but there were three guards with him. They pretty much had the upper hand because we couldn't get to them without risking Rigsby and Ben. They made us get back in the car, and they dosed us all with something to knock us out."

"They drugged Ben?" Lisbon said, horrified.

Cho shook his head. "No, they put Ben in Rigsby's lap and left him awake. Rigsby woke up first, because Ben was flailing around on his lap and crying so loud. Rigsby brought me and Van Pelt around, but by that time, you guys were long gone."

"How long were you out?" Jane wanted to know.

"About thirty minutes, give or take."

"Why didn't they just kill you?" Lisbon wondered.

"Russo was planning to kill the two of us," Jane answered. "If he killed the rest of the team, he'd really have no one to play with, afterward. He might have found it a poor substitute for messing with me, but it would be better than nothing, once we were gone."

Cho resumed his narrative. "Once we were all conscious again, Van Pelt said we should go after you. Rigsby and I agreed, but we had no clue where to look for you. The only lead we had was the list of properties, but there were too many of them. We couldn't get to all of them, and if we went to the wrong one, we knew we'd be too late. We tried to think of some other way to find you, but we had nothing."

"So you guessed," Lisbon said disbelievingly.

"Yeah. Once we decided which property to target, we had to act fast, because you guys were about an hour ahead of us by that time."

Jane frowned. "How'd you get here so quickly, if you were delayed that long?"

"Chopper," Cho said succinctly.

"How the hell did you get a helicopter?" Lisbon demanded.

Cho grimaced again. "Bertram."

"You brought Bertram in on this?" Lisbon said, shocked.

"We didn't have a choice. We needed a way to get up here quickly, and Bertram was the only one we could think of who had the pull to get us a chopper. We went to his office and told him Red John had you two, and if he wanted to prove he wasn't working for him, he'd get us a chopper that could leave Sacramento in less than thirty minutes."

"He could have warned Russo, if he really was working for him," Jane pointed out.

Cho shook his head. "No. Van Pelt confiscated his gun and phone and watched him like a hawk to make sure he didn't have a chance to double cross us. He agreed to help us get a helicopter, on the condition that he get to come along. Naturally, that made us pretty suspicious, but we didn't have much choice at that point. If he was working for Russo and we'd left him in Sacramento, there was too much of a risk that he'd find a way to tip him off."

"He's _here_?" Lisbon said.

"Yeah. Turns out he's not working for Russo, though."

"How do you know?"

"We were pretty far outnumbered when we first got up here. We only wanted to bring people we'd worked with before from SWAT, and after Maldonado, we weren't all that confident even in them. But we had to act fast so we didn't have time to be paranoid. Since we couldn't afford to be choosy, we picked ten guys and had to hope for the best. We confiscated their phones, too, and Van Pelt did something to jam the signals on their radios so they could only communicate between units."

"What does that have to do with Bertram being innocent?"

"Like I said, we were outnumbered before local PD arrived on the scene. One of Russo's people got past our defensive line and came around our rear flank. He tried to take out Van Pelt. Bertram still didn't have a gun, but he hit the guy across the back of the head with a fallen branch before he could get to her. Then he took the gun off the dead guy and shot two more of Russo's people before they could pick any of us off. By that point, we figured he wasn't out to betray us."

"Van Pelt's okay?" Lisbon asked anxiously.

"Yeah. She and Rigsby are upstairs rounding up the last of Russo's people."

"Where's Bertram now?"

Cho shrugged. "Who knows? Probably busy calling every media outlet in the state to tell them he led the team that caught Red John."

Of Lisbon's disapproving look, he blinked. "What? Just because it turns out he's not a serial killer's accomplice doesn't mean I have to like the guy."

"Hear, hear," Jane muttered.

A paramedic approached them. "Ma'am?" she said to Lisbon. "If you'll come with me, I can dress those wounds for you."

Lisbon looked down at herself. She had long, shallow gashes along her arm and collar bone, in addition to the tiny cut on her neck. All in all, not bad for having been in Red John's clutches for the past several hours, but she supposed she looked a bit of a mess. "All right."

"I'll come, too," Jane declared, reluctant to let Lisbon out of his sight.

Unfortunately, once they'd trooped upstairs, Jane was forced to take evasive maneuvers to avoid being poked and prodded by overeager medical personnel himself.

It was the state of his clothing that was attracting this level of unwanted attention, he decided. His pants were all right, but his shirt, vest, and jacket were all soaked in blood. Cho was still with Lisbon, so he decided it would be all right to leave her for a few minutes. The likelihood that the paramedic was a last holdout of Russo's people in disguise was slim anyway. Besides, he had plans. Plans which did not involve being covered in the blood of his nemesis. He escaped a second paramedic who showed signs of wanting to run latex gloved hands over his body and slipped upstairs in search of something else to wear. Surely at least one of the minions kept a change of clothes in the place.

He found a room on the second floor with two sets of bunk beds and two dressers. Excellent.

He rummaged through the drawers and found several shirts to choose from. Most of them were entirely unsuitable, of course. Too big. Too small. Too… plaid. Then there was one that was plainly meant for a woman. Finally he selected a plain blue button down and held it up to himself for inspection. Ah… just right.

He spotted a tiny bathroom off the corner of the room and decided he may as well take advantage of it to clean himself up a bit. He put Lisbon's badge in his pants pocket where her wallet was, then stripped off his jacket, vest, and shirt. He used the plaid shirt as a makeshift towel to scrub the blood off himself. Ablutions completed, he put the blue shirt on and examined his reflection in the mirror over the sink. Not bad. It was a bit tight across the shoulders, but it would do.

He scooped up his bloody clothing and deposited it in a plastic bag he'd found in the bathroom. He assumed the forensics people would be tiresomely disagreeable if such a large quantity of blood evidence went missing.

He paused, staring at himself in the mirror, and took stock of himself. He supposed he ought to feel traumatized, he reflected, after all he and Lisbon had been through. Remorseful, perhaps, for having taken a human life. Or at the very least, conflicted about the implications of the fact that his decade long quest was over. Perhaps he ought to feel empty, aimless because he had nothing to work towards after finally reaching his goal. But in truth, he felt exhilarated. They'd done it. They'd defeated Red John. And frankly, after witnessing what the man done to Lisbon, and knowing what he might have done to her, if Russo had held onto the knife even a moment longer, Jane couldn't summon up even the smallest shred of remorse for having ended the man's life. He was just unspeakably relieved that he'd stopped him in time; that this particular monster would never bother them again. Lisbon was alive and mostly unharmed. Ben was alive. Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt were alive. _He_ was alive.

He could have a life now, he thought. He could solve nice, boring murders during the day, and (assuming she'd have him) go home to Lisbon at night. Lisbon, who had saved him.

Lisbon. Lisbon was in love with him. She'd said so. Out loud, and everything. He'd always known she cared about him, of course, and even that she was attracted to him. He flattered himself that he knew her well enough to do a creditable job of seducing her. But at a fundamental level, he found it strictly incredible that Lisbon could love someone like him. Not as one more member of her little flock of self-designated charges—he knew she had the capacity for that. But as the man who would walk beside her through all the joys and trials of the years to come. Before, he hadn't allowed himself to hope for anything more than a desperate wish that he could keep her alive through the final confrontation with Red John. Now, hope rushed in and filled every corner and crevice of his brain previously devoted to the destruction of Red John. Lisbon loved him. And now he had the luxury of proving to her how very much he loved her in return.

Suddenly, he needed to see her. Right now.

He grabbed the plastic bag and left the room. He took the stairs two at a time on his way back to the ground floor.

He found a member of the unit of the forensics unit straight away and handed off the plastic bag—the reunion scene he had in mind did _not_ include an armful of bloody clothing between them.

His burden thus disposed of, he scanned the room for Lisbon's petite figure. The whole place was crawling with cops—members of the local PD had joined the SWAT unit by this time and were milling about the place, cluttering up the view.

Before he'd taken two steps inside the room to get a better look, his search was interrupted by a red-headed blur nearly bowling him over as it flung its arms around him.

Oof. Van Pelt's upbringing by a football coach had never been more apparent to him as she nearly took him down with the ferocity of her hug. "Thank God you're okay," she said into his shirt.

He patted her on the back awkwardly, resisting the urge to murmur, 'there, there.' "Come now, Grace. Surely you know it's going to take more than one genius serial killer and twenty of his best minions to keep me down for good."

"Sure," she sniffed, pulling away and giving him a watery smile. "This was all part of your plan all along, wasn't it?"

"That's right," he said. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Rigsby came up to them and hugged Jane, too. Jane clapped him on the back and tried not to wince. It would really be kind of ironic if he managed to escape a serial killer with hardly a scratch, only to have his ribs cracked by a member of his own team.

"Glad you're all right, man," Rigsby choked out.

"Never better," Jane said, easing out of Rigsby's painfully tight grip. "Ben's all right?"

"He's okay," Rigsby said. He looked at Jane. "I'll never forget what you did for me," he said seriously. "Never. You and the boss."

Jane hated being thanked. "Meh," he said dismissively. "All in a day's work. Speaking of the boss, where is she?"

"I saw her a few minutes ago," Van Pelt said with a frown.

They all turned to look around. Rigsby, who could see over the heads of most everybody in the room, spotted her first.

"There she is," he said, pointing to the other side of the room. "Over there, talking to Bertram."

Jane's followed the trajectory of Rigsby's pointing finger and his eyes landed on her at last. She was standing in front of a giant fireplace, talking to Gale Bertram. She had gotten cleaned up, as well. She was still wearing the red dress, and her feet were still bare, but her wounds had been cleaned and dressed, and she had washed her face—the bright red lipstick was no longer in evidence. She looked damn good, in fact.

"Excuse me," Jane said distractedly to Rigsby and Van Pelt as he stared across the room at the object of his affection. His gaze locked on Lisbon, he missed the amused glances they exchanged behind him as he started towards her.

Bertram broke off in the middle of his sentence when he noticed Jane approaching the two of them, his eyes fixed on Lisbon. "Jane!" he said, sounding almost jovial. Lisbon turned and gave him a little half smile when she saw him. She was utterly enchanting. Bertram, oblivious, continued talking. "Congratulations. Very well done. I heard you—"

"Not now, Bertram," Jane said without taking his eyes off Lisbon. He grabbed her by the hand and dragged her a few steps away into a relatively secluded corner of the crowded room. It wasn't the most romantic setting in the world, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. Well, given that the circumstances included about a thousand cops between him and the door and the fact that he couldn't wait another minute to finally know what she tasted like.

He stopped and turned to face her. Her eyebrow quirked upwards and her mouth formed that adorable pout as she frowned at his clearly agitated demeanor. "What's the matter, Jane? Is something wrong?" She pitched her voice lower, and leaned closer to him. "Did one of Russo's followers escape or something?"

He stepped towards her, cupping her face in his hands, and kissed her.

He got about five seconds of sublime perfection before Lisbon broke away.

"Jane," she hissed, scandalized. "My boss is standing _right there_."

He licked his lips, tasting her there. "I don't care."

She followed the movement of his tongue tracing the seam of his lips with her eyes. "There are like—a hundred people in here," she said weakly.

But he noticed her pulse had skyrocketed and she was breathing rather unevenly, so he didn't take her objections too seriously. He kissed her again.

When his lips met hers for the second time, Lisbon forgot all the very sensible reasons it was not a good idea to kiss Jane right now. To hell with it. His wide full mouth, long coveted, was finally hers, and she was damn well going to enjoy it. She sighed into his mouth and pressed closer to him, curling her fingers into his collar and pulling him towards her at the same time. He made a low noise in the back of his throat which she felt all the way down to the bottom of her toes. He buried his hand in her hair and the other found its way to the small of her back, pulling her flush against him. There was no distance between them now.

She kissed him hungrily, greedily; she couldn't get enough of his warm hands and hot mouth. She wanted to devour him, but had to content herself with lips and teeth and tongue. She bit into his soft lower lip, sweeping her tongue along the succulent edge of it, tasting the slight coppery tang where his lip had been split earlier. She continued her assault, demanding entry into his mouth. He granted it eagerly, his mouth meeting hers with a desperation that matched her own.

She couldn't have said how much time elapsed as they stood there, swaying slightly on the spot as they ravaged each other's mouths— it might have been only a moment that passed… or perhaps the birth of several stars. When they finally came up for air, all she could think was that she was really, _really_ glad she hadn't gone to her grave without knowing what it was like to kiss Patrick Jane.

Reluctantly, she let him go, recovering just enough rational thought for a tiny voice in some distant corner of her brain to tell her this probably wasn't the best time and place to ravish her consultant. Admittedly, that little voice was having a little trouble making itself heard over the haze of lust clouding her brain. Her fingers twitched, wanting him again. Her gaze lingered on his mouth again for a moment, and then she raised her eyes to meet his. Jane was staring at her with a big, dopey grin on his face that she'd never seen before. She stared back at him in shock. This is what he looks like when he's happy, she realized with a jolt. A warm feeling, sharp and thrilling, blossomed in her chest at the thought. I did that, she thought dazedly. That dopey grin was because of her. She smiled back at him; her own smile, she was certain, was at least half as foolish as his.

"Good God, woman," Jane said, shaking his head. "If that's what the path to peace is like, I might not survive the journey."

"What?" Lisbon asked, still somewhat dazed.

Dimly she became aware that people were clapping in the background—clapping for them. Or rather, the spectacle they'd just made of themselves. Rigsby had started it—she could see him grinning like an idiot on the other side of the room, clapping louder than anyone in the place. Van Pelt, next to him, let out a long wolf whistle. Even people Lisbon didn't know had joined in the good-natured applause and were grinning in appreciation of the unexpected show they'd just been treated to. She flushed, acutely conscious of the utter abandon she'd just exhibited. In front of a room full of her colleagues, no less.

Jane, of course, took it all in stride. He took Lisbon's hand in his and raised their joined hands above their heads as though they were taking a curtain call. He bowed theatrically, Lisbon half bending with him automatically due to their linked hands.

Everyone laughed, and clapped harder. The amount of whistling multiplied tenfold.

They were separated then, as people started to come up to them, shaking their hands and clapping them on the back. Lisbon found herself being kissed on the cheek by total strangers, as though this group of Kevlar-outfitted men were her brothers, exuberantly expressing their joy at their favorite sister's happiness at her engagement party. Though an occasion less like an engagement party than the final capture and killing of a serial killer, she could hardly imagine.

Rigsby waded through the crowd to the front of the queue, Van Pelt following behind him. He kissed her on the cheek in his turn. "It's about time," he said to her with a wink.

Lisbon blushed and punched him in the arm. "Shut up."

Van Pelt elbowed Rigsby out of the way and gave Lisbon a hug. "I'm so happy for you, boss," she whispered in her ear.

Lisbon hugged her back. "Thanks, Grace."

When the parade of congratulators had slowed to a trickle, Bertram came up to them. "Yes, well," he said, looking at Jane somewhat askance. "I can't say this is exactly a surprise, but I must say I wasn't expecting you to be so… public about it."

Jane shrugged, unrepentant. "I didn't want to wait any more."

"Hm." Bertram didn't look angry, but he didn't exactly look happy, either. He shook his head. "Well, I suppose there's no harm in it, as long as you conduct yourselves professionally in the office."

"I promise I will behave just as professionally as I always have," Jane said solemnly.

Bertram, understandably, did not look comforted by this.

Lisbon, eager to get her boss's mind off the topic of her relationship with her consultant, asked, "Will we be heading back to Sacramento soon, sir?"

"It will probably be a little while yet," Bertram replied. "You'll have to give your statements, and the techs have to finish processing the scene." He smoothed his tie down. "I'll have to give a statement to the press, of course. The local media outlet is sending a television crew up here to conduct the interview. Once that's done, you two can ride back to Sacramento in the helicopter, or you can catch a ride with one of the squad cars."

Jane raised one index finger. "Can I ride in the back of the trunk with Lisbon?"

Lisbon elbowed him in the ribs and blushed furiously. "Jane!"

"What? It's my new favorite way to travel."

Lisbon turned to Bertram. "We'll ride back in the helicopter," she said firmly.

Bertram shrugged, indifferent. "As you wish." He raised his voice, calling to two agents across the room. "Avery! Lansing! Come over here, will you?"

Avery and Lansing duly trooped over to Bertram's side.

Bertram gestured to Jane and Lisbon. "Take down their statements, would you? Want to make sure we document the chain of events while it's still fresh in their minds."

"Yes, sir," Avery said, with Lansing echoing a beat behind.

Jane grimaced. There were several events from that day he'd quite frankly prefer to forget which he feared would nonetheless forever be burned in his brain.

Avery addressed Jane. "You and I can use one of the rooms upstairs," he said. "It'll be quieter up there."

"There's a study off the main hallway here on the ground floor," Lansing told Lisbon. "I can take your statement in there."

"Can't you just interview us together?" Jane objected. "We were together the whole time, anyway."

Avery shook his head. "That's not how it works."

Jane looked ready to argue the point, but Lisbon forestalled him. "It's all right, Jane," she said, patting him on the arm. "The quicker we go, the quicker it will be over." She gave him a small smile. "I'll see you after, okay?"

It was with ill grace that Jane permitted himself to be separated from Lisbon. Giving his statement to Avery was tedious and irritating. Especially when the younger man periodically paused with his pen over his notebook and exclaimed, "No shit! Seriously?" after Jane had recounted some of the more shocking parts of the narrative. Really, if he had been on Lisbon's team, she never would have put up with that level of unprofessionalism. In any case, retelling the whole of the story seemed to take forever, and being forced to recall the most terrifying moments of the day—the moments when he'd really thought he was going to lose Lisbon for good—was not making him any happier about being parted from her, even for the length of an interview.

"Wow," Avery said admiringly when Jane was finally finished telling the story. "Agent Lisbon is seriously badass, isn't she?"

Jane glared at him. Now that he had kissed her in front of a room full of people, he felt entitled to stake his claim more overtly than he ever had done in the past. Previously, he had been forced to employ much more creative and subtle means to discourage any potential admirers who cast their eyes in Lisbon's direction. One more perk of Red John being gone—he was finally able to act freely where she was concerned. Glaring was so much more efficient.

Avery straightened. "Uh—not that I meant that as anything more than a strictly professional observation," he said hastily. "I mean—she's totally not my type, anyway. I like blondes," he added lamely.

He was lying, of course—what man, after seeing Lisbon in that red dress, could credibly claim that she wasn't his type?-but Jane appreciated the effort. "Yes," he said, relenting. "You're quite right. She is seriously badass."

He left Avery to his notes then, intending to find his favorite badass senior agent and determined not to let anyone part him from her this time.

She was nowhere to be found. He checked the study Lansing had mentioned, but it was empty. He managed to track down Lansing, but Lansing merely informed him that he and Lisbon had concluded their interview fifteen minutes before and he didn't know where she had gone afterwards. Jane decided that next time he saw Lansing and Avery, he was going to put frogs in their pockets. And not origami frogs, either- real ones.

He searched the house, checking the rooms on the top floor, and even, reluctantly, venturing back down to the Red Room to see if she might have gone back there for some official reason or another when he couldn't find her anywhere else. There was no sign of her.

He went back up to the ground floor, feeling disgruntled. He peered out the living room window to the front drive, where Bertram was standing and pontificating about the CBI's crack investigators and their commitment to bringing killers to justice, blah, blah, blah. He thought Bertram would have wanted to parade Lisbon in front of the cameras, to add an attractive, humanizing element to the whole sordid mess, but she must have escaped his media-hungry grasp because she wasn't there, either.

Operating on the theory that she would have wanted to be as far away from Bertram and the cameras as possible, Jane finally found her outside, behind the house.

From the back door, the ground sloped down away from the house. Trees had been cleared from the side of the hill immediately below the building, providing a spectacular view of the lake below. The pale golden light of early autumn glimmered off the surface of the lake and streamed through the leaves of the trees framing either side of the house as the sun dipped towards the horizon. Lisbon was sitting on a low wooden fence a little ways away from the house, her bare feet hooked over the bottom rung as she watched the sunset over the lake.

She half-turned when she heard him behind her. "Hey," she greeted him.

"Hey."

She turned back to the sunset. He hesitated, watching her for a moment, then climbed up and sat down next to her on the fence.

"You have to admit," she sighed. "Russo picked a beautiful spot to brainwash his followers."

He stole a glance at her. "Yes. It is beautiful," he agreed.

He wanted to put his arm around her, to pull her close. But the moment the thought occurred to him, it was as though a layer of ice crystals had formed in the cavity of his chest, paralyzing him. What if this wasn't real? What if _she_ wasn't real? What if he'd broken from reality at last? What if she was still in that basement, and the sight of her being tortured by Russo had caused him to become well and truly unhinged? What if she was lying dead on the floor of the Red Room and his brain had manufactured this splendid illusion because he couldn't cope with the reality of her death?

She bumped him gently with her shoulder. "You okay?"

He released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. She was here. She was real. "Fine."

"You sure? It's been a bit of a day."

He had to smile at her incredible understatement. "Yes, it has been that," he agreed.

"You're not upset?" she double-checked.

He looked at her sharply. "Why would I be upset?"

She shrugged. "The person you've devoted the last ten years of your life to finding is dead. I can't imagine you don't feel a bit… unsettled."

He shook his head. "I'm just grateful everyone I care about is still alive," he said truthfully.

Lisbon clearly didn't believe him. "You can't just… be fine, all of a sudden. All these years you've been chasing him, you've never properly mourned your wife and child. You'll need time to grieve, now that he's gone."

"I'm not saying I won't have some things to work through, now that he's gone. But can I start working through my grief tomorrow?" Jane asked. "Today, I just want to celebrate the fact that Red John is gone and we're all still alive to tell about it."

"I suppose," Lisbon said, looking disconcerted.

He paused. "Are _you_ upset?"

"Why would I be upset?" she said, turning his words around on him.

He looked down. "I killed Red John. I know you didn't want me to."

There was the briefest hesitation, and then she said firmly, "It was the only way. He was going to kill us, Jane, and you stopped him. If someone had to die, I'm just glad it was him and not you."

Noting that tiny moment of hesitation, he wondered if he would ever be able to convince her that at that final, critical moment, at least, he had not been thinking of revenge; his head had been too full of her. He sighed. At least he had time, now, to win her confidence. But that would come later. For the time being, he would accept her words at face value. "Okay."

"And as much as I hate to admit it," she added with a sigh of her own, "I am relieved we don't have to worry about him plotting any more devious schemes from the inside of a jail cell. I'm glad it's really over."

"Do you think we got all his followers?" Jane asked. "He seems to have invited quite a number of them to his big show."

"I doubt it," she said, frowning. "There are probably a few more slightly more sane ones out there who make a bit more of an effort to maintain covers as normal people. The team will have to go through the employee records at the iron properties companies. Plus his army records; we'll have to see if he recruited anyone else through other trainings or other some other means through his military connections."

"Later," Jane said hastily, not wanting to set her off on a new mission straight away. "There are other things that need to be done before addressing any of that."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Like what?"

"Celebrating, remember? I don't know about you, but after today, I think we deserve a little celebration before putting our noses straight back to the grindstone."

"Fair enough," Lisbon agreed.

He inched closer to her. "What form of celebration would suit you best, Lisbon?"

"Nothing very exciting, I'm afraid," Lisbon said with a sigh. "I've had rather enough excitement for one day. All I want to do now is take the longest hot bath in the history of the planet."

"That sounds like an excellent way of celebrating," Jane agreed, trying without success not to be distracted by the mental image of Lisbon in a bubble bath. "Where are you planning to take this historic bath, if I may ask?"

"I was thinking my apartment," she said warily. "Where the hell else would I take a bath?"

"You could come over to my hotel," he offered. "It has a pretty nice bath."

She looked at him askance. "No offense, Jane, but there is no way in hell I'm taking a bath in that flea-bitten hotel of yours."

"What, the extended stay hotel?" he said, surprised. "Oh, I'm not staying there anymore."

She blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I moved."

"You _moved_?" she said incredulously. "To where?"

"I have a room at the Loiree Grande now."

She gaped at him. "You're staying at the Loiree Grande? Since when?"

Jane thought about this. "A few weeks, give or take."

"That place is like four hundred bucks a night!"

Jane shrugged. "It's close to your place. After Russo sent me the lamb, I wanted to be able to get to you quickly if I needed to, and given all your complaining about my 'hovering,' I didn't think you'd be willing to let me move in with you."

Lisbon looked thunderstruck. "After ten years of staying in that horrible dump, you moved to a five star hotel to be closer to me because you thought Red John was going to come after me in the middle of the night?"

"Pretty much," Jane said. "So, what do you say?"

She shook her head. "I say you're spending entirely too much money on that hotel. Why can't you just get an apartment like a normal person?"

"No, I mean about the bath. Do you want to come over?"

Lisbon looked completely flummoxed. "You're seriously inviting me over to your hotel for a bath?"

"Yes."

She hesitated. "It's only a few blocks from where I live," she said at last. "It makes more sense for me to just go home."

"Nonsense, it's far more sensible for you to come over to my hotel tonight."

She raised her eyebrows. "Sensible isn't the word I would choose."

"Sensible is a perfectly appropriate word. You want a bath, and the hotel bath is far superior to the one you have at your apartment." He leaned closer to her. "It has a sunken tub. With jets."

Lisbon looked torn, as though she were trying to figure out whether he was serious or not. Jane sighed inwardly, realizing that despite the kiss they'd shared—that searing, mind-bending kiss—and all that had been said before, it was going to take Lisbon some time to adjust to the concept of his romantic interest in her. Apparently, her view of him as the devoted, revenge-obsessed widower was more deeply entrenched in her mind than he'd realized. He supposed he really didn't have anyone to blame for that but himself, he reflected. Hadn't he encouraged her to believe in that image through his own behavior in a vain attempt to maintain distance between them? He'd have to remedy that. It might take some time, but he'd convince her of his intentions in the end. He met her eyes. "I'd like you to come over. Bath optional."

She stared at him, searching his face for some evidence of trickery. Finding none, she wavered, and then finally muttered, "Yeah, okay. I'll come over."

"Excellent," Jane said, unruffled by her less than enthusiastic response, now that he had secured the answer he wanted. "I'll even spring for the fancy bubble bath they sell at the hotel gift shop."

"See that you do," she said archly, looking a little rattled by what she'd just agreed to.

"Consider it done. As for tracking down the rest of Russo's minions, that shouldn't be too hard, now that we've finally gotten the better of the man himself. But we'll worry about all that later."

She hesitated again. "We will?" she said tentatively.

"Yes," he said with certainty. "But not yet. We're going to take at least a week off, first. You are going to worry that I'm about to have some kind of emotional breakdown now that Red John is finally gone, but you won't be able to be too worried, because I'll be there, under your watchful eye. For my part, I am going to make sure you take a real vacation for once in your life. Preferably to a beach somewhere. And there will be no bulletin boards allowed," he added sternly, as though she had suggested they bring the Red John files along with them to the beach.

"So… you're staying, then?" she asked, fixated on that one critical element. "With the CBI, I mean?"

"Of course," he said, surprised. "Where else would I go?"

She looked away. "I don't know. Anywhere."

"Ah," Jane said, realizing with a sickening jolt that she truly believed there was a fair chance he might vanish into the night, never to be seen or heard from again, now that Red John was finally gone. Invitations to bathe at his hotel notwithstanding. God, he was a fool. Truly, Lisbon's confidence in him was the greatest casualty of his long, bitter effort to conceal his true feelings for her from Red John. Well. He'd just have to set matters straight on this point. "As it happens, the only way I'm going anywhere is if you're going, too."

"And now you think we're going on vacation together?" she clarified, relieved that he wasn't leaving, but unable to quite wrap her head around the idea of the two of them going on vacation together.

"I don't 'think' anything, Lisbon," he said, with absolute self-assurance. "Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, you and I are going to the beach."

His arrogance was still infuriating, even if the picture he was painting with his words was unbelievably tempting. "What makes you so sure I'll agree to that?"

"Well, for one thing, you're in love with me," he said. He felt light at the thought, as though a strange buoyancy had filled up his chest and might cause him to float away at any moment. "I feel fairly confident, therefore, that you will succumb to my charm and allow me to persuade you eventually."

She froze. "I…"

"Don't bother denying it. You said it yourself," he said cheerfully. "Out loud, and everything."

"Under duress!" she protested, annoyed at him bringing up her confession so casually.

He waggled one finger at her. "Ah, ah. No take backs, Lisbon. Don't think you're getting out of it now."

"No take backs? What are you, ten years old?"

He shook his head. "I should have known it would take nothing less than the threat of torture to get you to talk about your feelings."

"As opposed to you, who are always so forthcoming on the matter of your emotions," she said sarcastically.

"Yes, I suppose you have a point there," he mused. "Very well. Under the circumstances, it seems only fair to tell you that I'm in love with you, too."

She actually looked shocked. "You are?"

He rolled his eyes. "I'm going to have to speak to someone about revoking your detective credentials, Lisbon, if you really haven't figured that out by now. I've been pretty obvious, when you think about it. Really, how could you possibly ignore all the evidence you have at your disposal?"

"Evidence?" she squeaked.

"Yes—the romantic poetry, what you call my 'constant hovering'… How could you not know?"

"You never said anything," she said defensively.

"Neither did you," he pointed out.

"That's different," she protested.

"How?"

"I thought you knew," she said, shame-faced. "You're always going on about how transparent I am. I figured it was written all over my face. I thought if you felt the same way, you would have said something. That not saying anything was your way of protecting my feelings."

"I couldn't say anything," he said seriously. He scrubbed a hand over his face. "I knew he would come after you, if he knew. I thought if I hid it from you, he wouldn't be able to see it, either. Guess I was wrong about that."

"I thought—I thought you were still in love with your wife," Lisbon said haltingly.

He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the knuckles. "I will always love Angela," he told her quietly. "But I am _in_ love with you."

"Okay," she whispered, that bright, dangerous hope flaring up inside her at the words, threatening to consume her. She closed her eyes, and tried to let herself feel the words for real, after all this time. Perhaps she could avoid being burned by the fire, if she let herself feel them.

He put his arm around her. "I've been thinking about what you said," he told her.

"About what?"

"You said bringing down Red John was our life's work. Yours and mine."

"Yes. And we did it," she said in satisfaction, leaning into his side. "We brought him down."

"The thing is, I'm not so sure that's all I want my life to amount to."

She frowned. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I think I'd like my life to be about building something up, not tearing something down."

"Building what?" she asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"Building a life. With you."

She swallowed. "You want to build a life with me?"

"Yes," he said simply.

She looked at him, sure her heart was in her eyes, but still uncertain of her words. She was so in love with him it was terrifying. "I'm really bad at this," she blurted out.

"That's too bad for me, isn't it?" he said, unfazed. "Because you're the only one I'm interested in building a life with."

She looked at him sharply, and he had to chuckle at her look of consternation. "I hate to break it to you, Lisbon, but I'm not in the habit of inviting just anyone to take a bath at my hotel," he teased. He gave her a gentle squeeze of reassurance, and added, more seriously, "I know it won't be easy. All I'm asking is that we try. So what do you say? Do you want to build a life with me?"

She hardly knew what he was offering, or what he was asking of her in return. But it didn't matter, did it? Recent events had proven that she was incapable of walking away from him, no matter the cost. And God help her, she wanted him so badly, she'd agree to damn near anything, if it kept him with her. She would take whatever he was willing to give, and she would give him everything she had in return. Surely that was enough to, as he called it, build a life together. "Yes," she said at last. "I think I'd like that."

He beamed at her. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, her pupils dilating and her lips parting slightly. She kissed him then, softly and sweetly. Jane thought he would never get enough of that taste, as long as he lived. Apparently, she felt the same way, because she deepened the kiss, drinking him in like he was a cool glass of water and she was a woman dying of thirst.

When things had progressed to the point that Jane was mildly concerned they might fall off the fence if they weren't careful, Lisbon reluctantly drew away. "I suppose we ought to go back to the others," she said without enthusiasm. "They'll probably be ready to leave soon."

Lisbon, for whom action immediately followed resolve, moved to climb down from the fence, but Jane held her fast, not wanting to release her from her place by his side. "Not yet," he said. "Let's stay here, just for a few more minutes."

"As nice as it is here at the moment, Jane, I really don't want to miss our ride back to Sacramento."

"They won't leave without us, Lisbon. Please. Let's stay. Just for a few more minutes. I want to watch the end of the sunset."

She cast her eyes over the shimmering golden lake. It really was beautiful. "Okay," she agreed. "We'll stay for the end of the sunset."

Jane wrapped his arm around her more securely and fixed his eyes on the horizon, entranced. He didn't want to miss a moment of this. Because as he sat there with Lisbon by his side, a new path was unfolding before him. A path full of green leaves, golden light, and emerald eyes. It looked fascinating and inviting, and surprisingly free of shadows.

It looked like the path to peace.

THE END


End file.
